It is so far so good in Grayson’s rebuilding
WITH four new players already in place on Wearside, Simon Grayson has made a promising start to his rebuilding job at Sunderland.
Grayson only took over a fortnight ago but has already raided the loan market to sign defenders Brendan Galloway and Ty Browning from Everton.
He has also proved he has an eye for a bargain after snapping up Republic of Ireland winger Aiden McGeady for just £250,000 from the Toffeemen and ex-England Under 21 striker James Vaughan for £500,000 from Bury.
With a dozen players having departed over the summer – either at the end of their contract, at the end of their loan spell or to join other clubs – there is still plenty of work for Grayson to do to bring the squad up to strength.
Not only that, there could yet be further players leaving, with question marks against the futures of those such as Lamine Kone, Jeremain Lens and Wahbi Khazri.
Grayson may bring in another goalkeeper as competition for Vito Mannone, now the club’s firstchoice shotstopper Jordan Pickford has moved on to join Everton.
He is known to want another winger, Bournemouth’s Max Gradel his number one target although he is also wanted by clubs in France.
One area in which Sunderland are well served is central midfield with Lee Cattermole, Darron Gibson, Paddy McNair, Didier Ndong and Jack Rodwell vying for places, ahead of youngsters such as George Honeyman, Ethan Robson and Elliot Embleton.
The one area Sunderland must strengthen before the transfer window closes is their striking options.
Because aside from Vaughan, the Wearsiders have no recognised senior strikers to call upon now Defoe, Borini, and Anichebe, have left.
Teenagers Joel Asoro and Josh Maja have bags of potential – and are likely to play supporting role this season.
However, they have only a handful of first-team outings between them and are too young and too inexperienced to shoulder the goalscoring burden of a side with promotion aspirations.
Grayson admits: “James Vaughan has played at this level so he knows what it is all about and he is a different option for us.
“Is it the end of the striking options we are going to bring in? Probably not.
“We will be looking to bring in other people as well but he gives us another dimension to how we want to play.”
In Vaughan, Sunderland have at least signed a striker with top-flight experience – in fact he is the Premier League’s youngest goalscorer having found the net at the age of 16 for Everton against Crystal Palace in 2005 – and who was in blistering form for Bury last season, finishing as League One’s second-highest scorer with 24 goals.
Grayson added: “James has good experience and he scored a lot of goals last year.
“He is a player who will come into the squad and give us something different because I think we were missing a striker with a physical presence – and he certainly brings that attribute.
“He is mobile, he knows where the goal is and he fits in with the ethos we are trying to bring to Sunderland, so I am sure he will be delighted to sign and get going.”
Vaughan has headed to Scotland to link up with the squad ahead of today’s final friendly north of the Border against St Johnstone, which could give Black Cats fans their first sight of their new signing.