August – The State of Play at Sunderland

OK, August is here! Now is a great time to assess the current state of play at the football club, so let’s take a few minutes and summarise recent happenings, as well as look ahead to the start of the new season.

Article by Ben Mummery

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What’s happened over the summer?

Oh not much, except our manager left to become England manager, we’ve appointed former Everton and Manchester United gaffer David Moyes, and we have signed……. we’ll get onto that in a minute.

Sam’s departure wasn’t well received by all with many Sunderland fans lamenting the lack of loyalty in the modern game. However the general feeling seems to be one of Allardyce having done his job, kept us up, and now it’s time for the club to move onto a new chapter in it’s life. Regardless of the name on the office door, SAFC need, and have done for a long time, some stability. Too many managers and head coaches have come and gone in recent years, anybody would agree that we need to introduce a settled situation at the club. Uncertainty has been the poison that has put many players off coming to Sunderland, as well as causing us to suffer on the field with shaky results and difficult runs of games. It has gone on far too long and finally the ship must be steadied under the captaincy of one man. Moyes to initial appearances would seem to be the man to fit the bill!

With his experience in the English top flight, knowledge of players, managers, contacts and influence in the game, it’s not too much to hope that this could be the manager we’ve needed for a long time.

Which leads us only our next point – recruitment.

Or, lack thereof!

One look at Twitter and it’s plain within seconds that Sunderland fans are furious about our lack of transfer business. Again though, one has to look to the reasons behind our complete transfer amnesty, and once again, uncertainty raises it’s head!

Allardyce will have had ideas as to who and what he wanted to bring into the squad before his head was turned by the prospect of becoming England manager, and no doubt the club will have worked hard to go after his targets. Then along came his departure, and the introduction of Moyes as the new chief, who will bring with him his own ideas of what and who we need – who’s to say they are the same ideas?

Furthermore, which players would have wanted to come to a club in recent weeks knowing full well that the manager would probably be gone inside of the following days, and they’d be working with a new boss who might not necessarily have them in their plans? Managerial changes and uncertainly for much of the time since the players have returned will no doubt be the cause of Sunderland’s difficulties in signing new players, and it’s not a problem that resolves itself inside of a couple of days.

Pre-season preparation has been underway during this time, with the manager attending to training and match preparation as well as working on staffing the squad, there’s no way things could be done hastily, what’s more – nor should they be! Has not the club learned in recent years that rushing into deals isn’t the way to do business? Need I remind us all of the 14 players brought in by e Fanti under Di Canio? Or the raft of utter garbage bought under Poyet?

“Roberge”, anyone? Could I interest you in a little bit of “Ignacio Scocco”? How about a helping of “David Moberg Karlsson?”

Bringing players in is fine, but they must be the right players! We can’t buy players to sit on the bench, nor can we go buying players for the sake of it. We don’t need to collect midfielders or average attacking players who are “prospects”, we need to bring in players who improve the first team. Players who give us a chance of winning each Saturday afternoon!

Moyes will recognise this, and after apparently receiving assurances from Ellis Short, it stands to reason that we can expect new faces to appear soon. Late is the hour in terms of the dawning new season being about to start, but these players will be imminent, and they will improve us or they wouldn’t be being considered.

So as things stand, we’re a little behind in terms of where we need to be. We can put this down to a summer of disruption at the helm, and a shake up of the managerial staff. However, there is still time before the season kicks off and we will wait with baited breath to see what happens over the coming days.

The season doesn’t start for real until March 2017 anyway!

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