Well looking at the most recent Sunderland starting 11. Only 5 are new to the squad this year. 2 of those 5, John O’shea and Wes Brown, have years of experience of playing together whilst at Man U (not a bad standard really). The other 3 are:
1) Sebastian Larson – who I think most will agree is a quality player that numerous teams were after in the transfer window
2) Craig Gardener – Who is a quality player and also played alongside Sebastian Larson whilst at Birmingham
3) Niklas Bendtner – Who was on-loan at, you guessed it, Birmingham City and played alongside Sebastian Larson (who is trained with as a kid at Aresnal as well)
Also a mention should be made that Kieran Richardson, also in that starting 11, played alongside both O’Shea and Brown during the Man U days.
So you can see the Sunderland FC squad haven’t exactly been changed much and where it has been changed all of the players are familiar with each other.
Whereas the Leicester City 11 against Blackpool – only Dyer and Wellens were in the squad prior to this season! The players the NP has had an involvement with are:
1) Danny Drinkwater – has been on loan to numerous clubs but looks a real prospect.
2) Ben Marshall – Most agree this guy has got talent. IMO he looks like a real find even though majority of his time was in L1.
3) Wes Morgan – There is a thread on this very forum which cant give enough praise for this lad
The rest of the starting 11 came from Svens purchases. None of whom have played together in any capacity and have come from a wide range of leagues all over the world.
Its not difficult to see which manager has taken on the more disjointed squad!
