MoN on Euro's transfers

MARTIN O’Neill will resist the temptation to pursue any of the one-hit wonders from this summer’s European Championships.

Sunderland landed one of the stand-out performers from the World Cup two years ago when Asamoah Gyan arrived at the Stadium of Light in a £13million deal.

Although then boss Steve Bruce had watched Gyan in domestic action for Rennes on several previous occasions, the Ghanaian made just 35 appearances for the Black Cats before moving to United Arab Emirates outfit Al-Ain last September.

Successor O’Neill is keen to avoid recruits who only shine on the international stage and will take a cautious view on the stars in Poland and Ukraine.

The Sunderland manager told the Echo: “I’m not so sure that you should be buying players based on European Championships or World Cups.

“I did it once at Celtic and bought a lad called Joos Valgaeren, who actually turned out to be brilliant for us.

“There are one or two exceptions to everything, of course, and you can’t take it as a guaranteed rule.

“But, on principle, I wouldn’t do it because I’ve seen the players you get.

“I’d rather concentrate on what their league form is.

“Some people can really rise to the occasion in two or three matches where the pace of the game is totally different to the league.”

O’Neill insists that shouldn’t be taken as a sign that he will ignore the best players on the Continent, despite largely signing home-grown players at previous club Aston Villa.

The Black Cats boss went on a scouting mission to Europe a fortnight ago and is keen to dispel the myth that he only buys British.

“If I was only going to buy British players, then I wouldn’t go abroad to watch football matches,” said O’Neill.

Likewise, O’Neill has rejected the notion that he will wait until the final throws of the transfer window before landing his summer targets.

O’Neill is eager to have at least some of his new recruits on board by the time Sunderland get their Premier League campaign underway on August 18.

“People have always said I do my shopping late,” he added.

“But I would prefer to have the players in early if it’s possible, but sometimes you can’t do it.

“We could have an acquisition or two before the season starts, that’s very important and certainly I’d want them before the end of August.”

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Plus.


SUNDERLAND will concentrate on offloading the third of their South American flops after Cristian Riveros completed a permanent exit from the Stadium of Light.

Riveros yesterday signed a three-year deal with Turkish outfit Kayserispor for an undisclosed fee – reportedly around the £500,000 mark – a

The exit of Riveros does ease the strain on Sunderland’s wage bill and O’Neill will attempt to free up further funds by offloading Argentine defender Marcos Angeleri.

Angeleri is the sole survivor of Sunderland’s South American contingent after Riveros’s international team-mate Paulo Da Silva was sold to Real Zaragoza last summer.

Unlike the Paraguayan pair, Angeleri has barely even figured in the Premier League for the Black Cats – making just two brief substitute appearances, with his only start coming in last season’s FA Cup third round defeat to Notts County.

The 29-year-old was allowed to return home to former club Estudiantes at the tail end of last season, in the hope of a move materialising.

But Angeleri’s long-standing knee problem, which he aggravated in pre-season after moving to Sunderland in a £1.5million deal in the summer of 2010, scuppered his hopes of a deal and he underwent two separate operations on the injury.

Angeleri returned to training at the Academy of Light last month though and, with a year remaining on his contract, has expressed a desire to return to Argentina.

O’Neill said: “I heard talk while he was recuperating that he probably wanted to go back home again. I haven’t sat down and spoken to him yet – there was little point until he got fit.”

 

Strange one this, DO we recoup any money from these deals?