Alright chaps, just been on the Sunderland AFC website and watched the clip of Bally and the other coach and I see John Barnes was there in the West Indies coaching the young lads. This can only benefit SAFC in the long run. Since Quinny has taken over the club SAFC are going more global we go to the West Indies every year trying to find the next Kenwyne Jones or Dwight Yorke aswell as having links to the top club in Ghana as well as a club in Egypt. The club are casting there net a far and if it helps us bring the best talent to the club from those parts of the world then great. Africa especially is producing some of the best players of the last 10years or so the likes of Drogba, Eto'o, Essien, Mikel, Keita etc. As for on a financial side it also seems we are going about it the right way after the trip to South Korea a few weeks back trying to find investment with trips planned to other parts of the world over the course of the next few months. As a club we are in great shape on the whole, great stadium, great training facilities, great fans, owner who has backed the club and stablity, we just in my opinion need 1 more transfer market were we splash the cash as we are 3 or 4 quality players light IMO especially upfront. Add these 3 or 4 players the likes of Onuoha, Kranjcar, Hoilett and Cisse as I have mentioned on another thread and we can seriously push our way up and back into the top ten then we can go along the route of 1 or 2 quality players each transfer window.
The problem is keeping those quality players. Wages are 80% of turnover, and we can't pay that sort of player what they expect. The only really top quality players we'll get here are those with careers that are going nowhere, Bent at 'Spurs, Sess at PSG, Bendtner at Arsenal, etc. We're o.k. as a life-line, but that's all we are to them. I think we're in a better position to attract strikers than we were. Larsson, Vaughan, Gardner and Sess offer much more support than Catts, Meyler and Henderson did to Bent and Gyan. So that's a positive. But the bottom line is we need more income.
