Sunderland Banter Archive August 25 2015

 

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25 Aug 2015 10:06:45
I'm looking through all of the posts below and a lot of the fans don't appear to understand the situation we are in!

Gus Poyet came out yesterday and confirmed that SAFC had approached players he wanted to sign but were rejected either by the club they played for or by the players themselves. I bet most of these never even made the papers or rumours pages! We need to accept that a club in regular relegation battles located in the North East of England is not an attractive option to high profile quality players.

Gus then confirmed that the Sporting Director, whether that was Di Fanti or Congerton, then provided a list of players who were available and would sign and he had to select from those. The problem here was that these players had the club over a barrel so high agents fees, inflated transfer fees and excessive wages were paid to get the deals through.

As a club we are now feeling the backlash of this as our funds have been wasted and our wage bill is currently 70% of our turnover! We need to clear out the deadwood and high earners but as they are poor quality and paid in excess of what they are worth no other clubs want them. Catch 22 then, we can't improve until we can clear out.

Basically all of this is not simply just Ellis Short's fault. He hired people to deal with the football side of the club and I think they have let him down badly. He is putting his own money into the club to sustain the losses we are making and we are still hurling abuse at him. About time we the fans woke up and came back into the world of reality!

One of my concerns is our scouting network. We don't appear to be able to identify players with potential that are available at reasonable prices (Such as Montero at Swansea who cost around £4m) The exceptions to this appear to be M'Viila and Lens although their price tags, Lens in particular, do put them into the higher quality players bracket.

I am a season ticket holder and I have to admit after the Norwich game I was very demoralised. I did not however boo the players as this serves no purpose and will not motivate them to perform better.

For me, we need to accept the status of our club, something the club are doing their best to improve on an international basis, and simply support the players we have. Fair enough to give them grief if they are not showing commitment and effort but if they are simply getting beat bu higher quality teams get behind them, like we did on Saturday, and hopefully they can raise their game.

I'm not sure if you agree with any of this post Ed's but in my mind I think I am pretty close to the mark!

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{Ed001's Note - do you not think Gus is at fault then? As he wasted huge sums at Brighton as well, it is not like this can be judged as a one off. I mean it is all very well saying he wanted certain players and then couldn't get them, but why not then try and introduce youngsters to the team? Or doing his own scouting to find players in the lower leagues? He claims to be a coach, coach what you have, or be a manager and manage with what you have and only buy one or two who are a definite step up in class. He is a chequebook manager and has to accept he made a mess of it.}

25 Aug 2015 10:38:48
I think it goes back as far as Keane to be honest Ed's. We spent huge amounts of transfer fees (£40m in one season) under Keane which would also have had high wages alongside.

Bruce was middle of the road spending money on average players rather than high money in general. He never really improved the squad and coaching at the club.

O'Neil is renowned for paying high wages and stupid fees. A lot of Villa fans were glad he walked because of this as he nearly took them under and left them with players they could not move on.

PDC simply had too many new players of poor quality and Di Fanti wasted money bringing these in. Not sure he he selected these exact players or if they were just signed anyway but the sheer quantity would simply never work.

Poyet I agree has to take blame. Bridcutt and Buckley were only signed due to him from his Brighton days and neither had potential let alone quality. Vergini to be honest is plain useless yet he forced the club into loaning him then signing him. I assume Scocco etc were all down to Gus as well with his South American links. His coaching did not work and his tactics too negative.

And all the way through all of these managers the Reserve / U21 players have never been given a chance. Simply look at Southampton, Everton, and even Villa, who nurture young players through and do not hesitate to play them in the first team. We have Watmore, Gooch, Agnew, Robson, Beadling, Mandron etc all showing promising signs but they get nowhere near the squad, let alone the bench or starting lineup.

I agree with your comment that the squad should only need 2-3 players each season to upgrade the quality / replace players who have left. This will provide continuity!

My final issue is Dick only signed for a year and we do not have anyone being groomed. Earlier posts you suggested they might appoint someone towards the end of the season and have them in place to assess before the next transfer window. My concern is the current players know he is only there for one season so have no reason to show the dedication needed as he will not influence them being there next year!

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{Ed001's Note - you are right, it did stretch back before Gus, I was just pointing out that he was trying to point the finger elsewhere, instead of accepting he got it wrong. He might not be the only problem, but he was part of it.

The idea is that you only need someone at the top to be there long term, such as Congerton, though obviously it would be better if it was someone better at his role, to have continuity. Then the coach can be changed with little fuss.}

25 Aug 2015 11:27:29
Is Congerton actually the problem though or is it our policies? Do we struggle to get transfers through because we try for everything on long term payments instead of cash up front? Comments about still paying for players who have already left are concerning as surely we have transfer income to offset against this.

Ok, this is not fully accurate, but if you look online and spend against return since the Keane era began we only average around £6m per season spend. This is not exactly massive so the financial issues must run deeper, such as paying off managers, cancelling contracts, stupidly high wages and so on.

Our friends up the road have lambasted Mike Ashley for many a season now but, even though they were relegated for a season, he has cleared their debt, reformed the wage structure and has them making a profit. With the TV windfall about to land he has now authorised transfer spending as he knows they can cover this without running up debts. After so long in charge surely Short should have had similar structure in place.

Very concerning how bad our financial situation is given the lack of quality we have in the squad!

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{Ed001's Note - every club tries to pay for transfers over a period of time.}

25 Aug 2015 16:15:51
To me it seems there is a problem RIGHT through the club! Congerton for some of his duff buys! Short for wanting to run the club as a business rather than like a football club! and some the players for not basicly trying on the field! overpaid and over here!! no one knows what is going on behind closed doors and that's is the problem with this regime its a closed shop compared to the Niall Quinn years where most stuff was transparent! For the team to go into meltdown like they did in the first two games shows that there is major problems at this club and the latest story is that DA is unhappy with Ellis Shorts tight handling of the purse strings! one thing is certain! if DA resigns due to Shorts reluctance to release transfer funds the crowd and media will put so much pressure on Short that his position will become untenable! and where will that lead us???

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25 Aug 2015 09:36:06
Ffp regulations state that a club can only have a debt of 105 mill for up to three season's a maximum loss of 15mill over three season's unless the owner injects cash no wage restriction as long as it's under 52mill a year,over this amount 4mill is allowed based on clubs commercial activities,hope this helps you

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