All your transfer and takeover questions answered
Sunderland remain in the market for new players, but where do their transfer plans stand ahead of the final fortnight of the window?
Phil Smith has answered all your questions on Phil Parkinson's targets, the future of out-of-favour players and the takeover talks surrounding the club:
Why do Sunderland seem to keep stalling when it comes to transfers? Liam Boyce & Greg Docherty are just two examples. Boyce reportedly is available for £250,000 so why hasn’t that deal been done?
I think it varies from case to case at the moment. In terms of Greg Doc her ty, more than anything it’s the manager weighingup his options and deciding exactly what he wants from a mid field player at this moment in time.
Docherty is a good footballer, at a good age, with a lot of potential.
He is probably slightly more of an attacking midfielder in the current shape Sunderland play with, and that’s a department where Parkinson currently has a fair amount of options, particularly with Elliot Embleton on the brink of a return.
So is a loan move best for him or the club right now?
Steven Gerrard says he has lots of options, and lots of those could probably make him the key part of their side right now. Parkinson’s priorityright now is probably a more orthodox central midfielder to offer cover for George Dobson and Max Power.
So that isn’t to say a deal for Docherty of some description won’t be done (though it doesn’t sound at all likely), just that the pieces of the puzzle haven’t quite fallen into place yet.
There is, of course, an argument to say that the priorities and targets should be in place before the window opens.
That’s fair, even if the picture at Sunderland has changed fairly significantly since that awful midwinter run. In terms of Boyce, the feeling seems to be that for now, the arrival of Kyle La ff er ty takes the pressure off a little.
I still expect Sunderland to add another forward before the end of the window, with Boyce it will just be a question of whether they de em Burton’ s asking price to be good value for a player out of contract in six months.
That Burton have surged towards the play-offs can’t have helped, you suspect.
Nigel Clough confirmed in his press conference this morning that two bids from an unnamed club have now been rejected.
Comments from Hearts boss Daniel Stendel suggest his interest is still live.
Are we relying on getting players out so we can buy or loan players in?
Phil Parkinson has insisted that he doesn’t have to sell to buy or loan in.
He was given the go-ahead to focus on incomings primarily at the start of the window, but the way things have pan ned out, it’s been a fairly organic process.
L au rensDeBo ck and Dylan McGeouch left, while Kyle Lafferty and Bailey Wright have come in.
There’ll be further additions, but you’d also strongly expect one or two to leave.
The club remain confident someone will come in for Aiden McGeady at the end of the window, and if they add another forward as expected, then you suspect that the numbers in the squad mean that Will Grigg or Marc McNulty will likely move on.
So while Parkinson has not had to move players out in order to secure his signings, the
reality is you expect he will moved on about the same numberof players as he brings in by the time the window shuts.
What’s happening with Logan Pye and what is going on with our young players leaving for Premier league clubs?
Logan Pye is regarded as one of the most talented players in the academy. He’s a leftback but as you’d expect for a 16-year-old, he can operate in a few different positions.
He’s been capped by EnglandU 16 sand his talent means he plays most of his football at Sunderland in the U18 age group.
A number of top Premier League clubs have been circling but it’s Manchester United who have won the race. It’s understood that he has held talks there this week and is set to make the move.
More broadly, it’s an immensely complex topic and one worth splitting into a couple of key issues.
Firstly, the compensation and recruitment rules around academies are a major issue and leave any club outside the top six immensely vulnerable, particularly when it comes to players not old enough (17) to sign professional terms.
For smaller clubs, it often makes more sense to try and do business on your terms and retain some power over the process.
Sunderland’s stature and access to an excellent regional pool of talent is a major advantage but they are also in what is as far as I’m aware, the unprecedented situation of operating a Category 1 academy for two seasons in the third tier.
So quite simply, they have immensely talented players and staff, who clubs in the Premier League are desperate to recruit. The major concern,though, is that there have been so many talented players around Pye’s age who have left the club.
Sam Greenwood was not far off first-team involvement towards the end of that Championshiprelegation season when a number of youngsters were being blooded, but joined Arsenal,has done well and signed professional terms since.
Luca Stephenson joined Liverpool and there area number of other examples.
The Black Cats are for the most part getting reasonable fees for players with no senior experience, but of course the question is how much they could be worth in the future.
Such regular departures raise the obvious and fair questionof whether enough is being done to keep them, whether the pathway to the first team is strong enough (Bali Mumba, one of the few to stay and sign on professional terms, has not moved any closer to being a regular) and whether the academy can realistically maintain its reputation as one of the best in the country and the region as long as this continues. What’s the latest on further incomings?
As it stands, I’ d expect there to be three more additions. As ever, these things can change very quickly and that’s an obvious caveat.
Central midfield is the priorityand the area I expect to be addressed next.
It’s the area Parkinson is most worried about, in terms of the impact an injury or suspension to Max Power or George Dobson could have.
He has a number of targets, but is weighing up who fits the profile best.
They need cover at wingback, without a doubt. It’s not the easiest one to get right, because you don’t want to do a deal for the sake of it, but you also want to protect the fantasticdevelopment of Luke O’ Ni en and Denver Hume.
O’Nien’s versatility helps, as he could stand in for Hume on the left if the best option out there is more naturally suited to playing on the right.
Is there another young player you bring in, to grow and compete, rather than a loan
that might not be too beneficial to anyone? That’ s one of the key questions to settle.
Why are youngsters Ethan Robson and Elliott Embleton not in the 18 player squads when they are two very good prospects?
Elliot Embleton has had a serious hamstring injury, and only returned to full training this week, so that’s why you haven’t seen much of him.
I think he has a great chance of being involved though.
You can always sense when a manager is paying lip service when talking about a youngster’s potential, but that hasn’t been the case with Phil Park in son. He has watched a lot of his matches from Grimsby and been impressed by his vision and ability to pick a pass (we saw this for ourselves in preseason, when he was by some distance Sunderland’s most creative players).
He is also really encouraged by the improvements to his conditioning he’s made while on the sidelines, and hopefully
that is one positive he can take from an immensely frustrating period. One to watch.
Ethan Robson is a little more complex. He’ll have been disappointed not to be in the last two squads, but the upside is that it keeps his options open.
Once he features for Sunderland, his only loan option would be to go back to Grimsby. That might suit, but it makes sense not to commit while Parkinson weighs up what to do next.
Parkinson has been impressed with him in training, and the two loan move she has had have been really good in improving his capacity to play regularly. He should have been loaned out long, long before last January, but there’s nothing that can done about that now, other than to learn lessons for future players of his ability.
He will be a player for someone,technically very good and as Parkinson has noted in the last couple of weeks, someone
who actually has a really good engine, too.
I hope he gets a chance to show what he’s all about. Nobody wants to do it for Sunderland more.
Do you think Stewart Donald is giving enough financial backing to the manager in the transfer window?
The Chairman has promisedsufficient investment this month and supporters will rightly make a judgement on that at the end of the window.
At the moment, it’s too earlyto say. The manager has cut a relaxed figure throughout the month, and seems confident he will get the business done he needs.
Bailey Wright was a big addition for him. There was Championship interest but Parkinson held off on other deals he could have done to try and get this over the line.
It may only be a loan, but this a player with genuine second-tier pedigree and so it’s a big tick.
The situation has improved so dramatically in the last four weeks that the need for reinforcements is not quite so pressing, but cover and competition is still needed in the three positions mentioned earlier (wing-back, central midfield, a versatile forward).
Once we see what they do and how they bring in for those roles, we can judge properly. We will also set the against whoever leaves the club between now and February. As it stands, the likes of McGeady and Grigg could yet see a fairly significant chunk taken off the wage bill.
Why do we dither on transfers? Loans loans loans -I believe they have an unsettling effect on teams. I fear we will have to wait till 31 Jan for free transfers.
Loans are not ideal and we’ve seen that before many times at Sunderland.
I think, in fairness, the addition of Bailey Wright is sensible. He’s got plenty to prove ahead of Australia’s debut in the Co pa America, and he’ s out of contract in the summer so there’s the obvious possibility to do business if it goes well.
The character references he comes with are also second to none.
Just look at Bristol City’s statement yesterday. Most clubs send a player off with a one line confirmation, but both manager and chief executive wanted to pay tribute to his character.
Broadly speaking, though, I agree.
At the last Sunderland supporters’ collective meeting, the minutes say a pledge was made to sign players for the future and despite the uncertainty over the ownership, it’s really important that happens.
One of the best things about recent weeks has been the group of youngsters, Gooch, Hume, Willis, Dobson, going from strength to strength.
Their value will rocket and we need to see more of that.
A good compromise may
well be loans with an option to buy, giving the club better planning potential and also increasing the incentive for lo a nee store ally grasp the culture and contribute.
Are any billionaires interested in buying Sunderland?
We’re still waiting to see the dust settle on the sale process.Charlie Methv en claimed yesterday that there were‘ very credible buyers’.
He also said that he expecteda deal to bed one before the summer, so a new owner would have time to take key decision son players coming to the end of their contract, etc.
That raises the question of what happens in the meantime (with Jon McLaughlin, for example) and whether the price will be affected by any future promotion this season.
What we know for certain is that no preferred bidder has been identified and that no advanced talks have been held.
There area lot of questions still in the air.