Martin OâNeill has called on Sunderland fans to âtrust meâ - after admitting he needs four new signings to be competitive this season. The Sunderland boss expressed his frustration that he has failed to land a host of targets in time for Saturday's opening game of the new Premier League season at Arsenal. A £12million bid for Wolves' Scotland striker Steven Fletcher remains on a table somewhere within Molineux. Sunderland have also been linked with Manchester City's John Guidetti, who scored 20 goals in 23 games for Dutch club Feyenoord on loan from Manchester City last season. O'Neill also wants a creative, jinky midfielder - taking England international Adam Johnson on loan from Manchester City is an option being explored - and believes he also needs specialists at right-back and left-back. But he hasn't got any of them this weekend, so OâNeill has called on his existing squad, including free-transfer arrivals Carlos Cuellar and Louis Saha, to mount a âspiritedâ fight at the Emirates. âWeâre still looking to strengthen and Iâd love to have had the players in here for the first day of pre-season, but you just have to trust me," he said. "I hope Iâm not sitting here with a big red face on September 2nd saying, 'That was really tough.' âI donât want to end up being a raging headline and find out I may have some sort of onerous conversation with my owner after that. "But Phil Bardsley is out for a while, heâs the only real right-back we have and we have to look at that. We need a proper left-back. "I was hoping to inject a bit more pace and trickery into the team and add that to a striker. "How manyâs that?! âWe need all-round strengthening. We need to find more goals from the team and if we do that we can be more entertaining. "We also want to try and compete. We need to be competitive and our squad is definitely not strong enough. âIf anyone had seen us in pre-season, we lack serious depth (in the squad). I could definitely fill up with numbers if you want me to do that, but I want to try to get some quality in - players I think can improve us. âIn an ideal world, itâd great to get them all in. We were accused somewhere of not having a Plan B. Iâm trying as best as I can to get the players I need and felt were the targets I was looking at to improve the club. âItâs not to say there arenât a load of players out there that couldnât improve us, and by the end of the transfer window I hope to do that.â OâNeill is determined to pursue his top targets, players of real quality who could push the club into the top half. The next two weeks will prove crucial in Sunderlandâs chances of progressing. The limitations of OâNeillâs squad have been exposed by pre-season defeats, which have come on the back of a run of just two wins in 13 games at the end of last season. Of particular concern is the question of whether Connor Wickham, Fraizer Campbell and Ji Dong-Won can shoulder the goals burden, alongside 33-year-old new boy Saha. Asked if Sunderland may have to pay slightly over the odds in landing Fletcher, or their other top targets, OâNeill gave gentle nudge to his board. He said: âI was accused some time ago of paying well over the odds for Ashley Young [when he was Asrton Villa manager] and £9m was an awful lot for us to pay for a kid from Watford. "I didnât want to pay that amount of money for him but when you get to a stage you say, 'Fine, okay, I donât mind paying over the odds here if this person is value for money.' Thatâs fine and thatâs what Iâm thinking about. âYou put down x amount of pounds for one but I know we need to strengthen not just with the strikers, there are other areas too. "[The injury-plagued] Louis Saha coming in, thatâs fine [but] thereâs only a certain amount of games you can expect him to play. "He will help, but it would be asking a lot for him if we felt thatâs where weâre going to lay our hat.â Sunderland face an Arsenal team who are in a state of upheaval after the sale of star striker and captain Robin Van Persie to manchester United this week. OâNeill feels that for Arsenal the transfer represents a âmajor loss in terms of the whole season. âHeâs one of the top five strikers in world football - maybe even less than that - after Messi and Ronaldo. "When you lose someone scoring that number of goals and his whole contribution to the team as captain as well... "But Arsenal have survived losing major players in the past - Thierry Henry etc. Theyâve got players in to replace them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sounds there like we are definately after atleast 4 players which is good news glad we are after a RB, Phil Bardsley has improved loads but as MoN says he is the only proper right back at the club, we need competition in that area and someone better on the ball would be a good signing, I'm telling yas Hutton for 2m would be a top class piece of business left back lets hope its Olsson I like the bit about wanting pace and trickery, we need that in our midfield esp. on the right wing In MoN I trust, never doubted him for a second, might of got frustrated but never doubt Short and MoN because they always turn up with the goods sooner or later
Poolie,we must trust our manager to bring in the right players we need.Due to the poor perfomance of Bruce,posters on here are panicking!MON will get it right!!
I keep saying it but I trust the bloke implicitly. He is the best thing to happen to this club for 40 years and given the support and time he will prove it. By the end of the window, he will have delivered the players he wants and we will be on our way for sure.
A good read that. I hope MON keeps Larson in the side and he was one of our best players last season and always looked a danger from set pieces both scoring and creating. I personally think Colback and Larson would compliment each other in the middle of the park.
ner man 3rd IMO 1st Niall Quinn - the man mr Sunderland, love him, think every safc fan does, I bet even other fans teams cannot say a bad word about the great man 2nd Super Kev - best player ever seen play for us, if we had him now in his prime with the crazy prices of players nowadays he would easily be worth 45m 3rd MoN - best manager we have had since I have been following the lads lets hope he gets the backing of the board, under MoN we wont see any daft signings and spunking money up the wall like Bruce did with the likes of Angeleri and Keane did with Halford and Prica etc.
As i've posted before....trust MON 100% however it's the state of the market that is stopping quick progress, it certainly sounds like he knows what he wants and I for one believe that if he gets what he wants, he will show all of his doubters what he can do.
Poole where's this love for Alan Hutton from?? You must watch a much different player to me!! He was ****e last season. Nowhere near the player Bardsley is and we need cover who is capable, not just a right back in name. All about opinions mind but I really don't rate Hutton now
****ing hell i got a semi-on reading that, our lass can shove that 50 shades of grey up her jacksy, ****ing come on! thanks for sharing poolie
Trust MON 100% as a manager but, as for his signings so far it's a less than inspiring 50%. That can and in my opinion will change if we get the 4 more in he is talking about, so that would be 6 new faces by the end of the month. Even without signings we should be okay it'll be tight but, this season is about MON building his team ready to take the league by storm next season. FT ****ING M
