I fear for us this year as even though we have brought in 11 players we still look like we did last season. PDC made some comments last season that made me think we have someone who understands what the club needs and lacks. He stated we lacked any dynaism, pace, power and physical presence. He singled out centre midfield as one of the main problem areas. He was right! Main problems for us over the past couple of seasons have been centre mid. Colback, Cattermole, Larsson, Gardner and Vaughan are all too weak to cope in a physically demanding premier league and we often lost this area around the hour mark being completely overun as they couldn't cope with larger more physically imposing athletes who were often better with the football. N'Diaye once he got used to premier league football seemed to stem this somewhat. Whereas the season before Colback and Cattermole were used as rag dolls by Fellaini and simply pushed aside with ease, N'Diaye was a different animal and stopped Fellaini having his usual dominance over the centre of the pitch. Let's analyse the new signings: Vito Mannone - Back up keeper - Won't start Giaccherini - 5ft 5in - No physical presence and not particularly pacey. Decent on the ball, needED due to McClean being awful but not as much as say a centre mid. - Starter Mavrias - 5ft 9 in - Again no physical presence but very pacey - What worries me though is that we probably won't see him as PDC worringly prefers Ji and Wickham as the subitutes. Both physically imposing but only Wickham uses it yet his goal scoring record with us is bordering on........no just is DISGRACEFUL! -Wont start DMK- See Mavrias - Won't start Roberge - Not the most imposing physical centre half as we saw against Fulham but has something half the team haven't, the ability to ping a good pass forward. It's a shame but looks like he will now be dropped for Diakite. I'd personally play him over O'Shea who is one the most inept passers of a ball i've ever seen. - Won't start Cabral - 5ft 10in and looks to have a huinger and a bite about him. Also seems to get forward pretty well and has a decent shot. Against Tottenham he also showed he knows how to pick out his team mates with good forward passes. Yet PDC drops him for Gardner and Larsson, two of the weakest centre mids in the league! What a joke! - From PDC's comments.............Won't start BA - 6FT - Skinny but certainly didn't shy away from the premier league opposition against Man City and Tottenham. Seemed to be box to box with great energy a a decent shot. Surely worth a go over Gardner, Larsson or Vaughan! Looks to have disappeared from PDC's plans - Won't start Celustka - 6ft 1in - Physical presence and looks like one of our best signings of the summer- Starter Altidore - 6ft 1in - Physically imposing, pacey, looks very good but as Fletcher found out with us, no support and not many chances for him to get onto due to lack of a decent players in the engine room and the fact the midfield is completely lost on 60 mins every game. - Starter Diakite - 6ft 4in - Physically huge centre half. Concerns over fitness but had a good debut once he settled. Won't get any attacks started from the back and that with our current midfield is worrying. - Starter Watmore - Watmore won't be anywhere near the starting XI soon - Won't start Out of 11 signings so far only FOUR are looking like first team starters for whatever reason. Surely not good enough. We have signed two centre mids but both don't seem to in PDC's plans even though this is the weakest area of the Sunderland team and has been for a very long time. PDC should have been concentrating on this area more than any other. We still haven't signed a left back and only have one right back on loan. Injuries in the centre mid or full back area and we are right back to last season. What worries me is the weakest areas of the team have not been strengthed nearly enough. In fact centre mid is looking weaker as he has let N'Diaye go. Arguably we could say the same for full back as Rose has gone also. Altidore is just having the same issues as Fletcher did. No one talented enough to pick him our as the midfield as just useless sloggers. What a mess to sign XI new faces but to still look very much like we did under O'Neill. Unless the centre midfield is sorted quickly expect another relegation battle as the creative players will have no support once the centre is overun!
I think signing young lads for the future was utterly deliberate though. Giacc was signed for creativity, and he will provide it, we needed 2 CB's and we got 2 with different qualities, perfect. Altidore looks potentially a very good player and a handful, Celutska looks spot on immediately. Karlsson & Ba both looked excellent in Hong Kong and will be gradually fed in. We din't need 11 starters, we needed 5 or 6, and we still need 2, I'd say that's good business.
Just remembered your last thread..extolling the unwashed team. We have a much better team then last season and with 2 or 3 more we have strength and depth that should see us finish in the top half. Don't worry.
I think he's done grand considering we needed so much. Obviously we need a LB and a CM, get those in and i think we have a very good team potentially.
Without major changes to centre midfield we won't. We can buy all the attacking players we want, without a solid foundation layed down for them they won't get the correct support. They will find themselves doing a lot of defending rather than attacking.
You're assuming they're all Paolo's choices mate. Ba, Mavrias and Karlsson will be Angeloni signings who I believe fall outside Paulo's jurisdiction as they're developmental squad players and were probably purchased via a separate budget. They're there for paolo if he wants them, I expect them to drop in and out of the first team squad as the as the season progresses. As for the first team squad budget, It's clear where we need strengthen, cm and lb, but it sounds like there's some budget left to do business so fingers crossed we get a few more faces in. Levy and Bale are holding up the whole market up right across Europe, once Bale goes the window is going to go mental. Mad week coming up. I think Levy does it on purpose.
The op is correct, buying international players is not the way to go, we should be trawling the lowers leagues for more random ****e, instead of trying to make a fist of it.
Do you get out of bed on a morning? World worth it. 3 games in and you a writing everyone off. Get a grip and give the team a chance.
3 games in 1 win (just) 1 draw (just) and 1 loss (just)... too early to tell. At the moment the players heads will be all over the place, moving house/country, friends, making new friends etc.. Give them a month together and we'll see.
I've got to say i'm very happy with the signings thus far with the possible exception of Mavrias who was probably even worse than Ji against MK Dons and can't even be made to look half decent on youtube!! Giaccherini and Cabral i'm really happy with. Giaccherini is a proper tidy footballer who does that right things, he's got quality. Cabral seems like a good all round footballer, think he might even have a few goals in him which would be mint. That new full back Celustka seems to be made of the right stuff, think he'll do well. I've got a feeling Roberge will turn out to be decent and surprise a few people. I've got doubts about Altidore but he's got a goal to his name now, so that's good and he should cause problems with Fletcher. For the last 15 mins against MK Dons Altidore was proper pissed off and played really, really well. More of that. I also like the look of that Ba from the little i've seen, really want to see more of him.
