TheExile

I think his agent is possibly the one that controls his moves where I think others in the team are more mature. Poveda has some incredible clubs on his cv that his agent can point to as reasoning but his career hasn’t fully kicked in yet at 24. Nonetheless Sunderland have given him a platform where we wouldn’t or couldn’t. He did look quite subdued talking about his move when compared to the beaming smile talking about playing for rohl in January. He should have just told his agent to do one and gone where he would be happy during a key season for him if that was what he wanted. I am glad we didn’t go beyond a structure that we have in place as it shows an element of progress

Id not turn my nose up at dembele but he does seem similar to gassma. If you stick him in a mid table L1 side he’d take the absolute piss

Yeah they are likely to sell one of Clarke, Bellingham or Roberts which would necessitate and fund whatever wage he’s after. Its dissapointing as I think he’s got real quality and could be one of the best in the league, but as you say not always available. Im aware one or two have signed for us despite better offers elsewhere basically because of Rohl and players really wanting to come. He was part of a good spell here so if the overriding factor is money that’s fair enough but it shows he’s probably a different character to the wider profile of the squad.

I’ve just heard that in the north east too

It was interesting that Rohl said yesterday he wanted “five no 6s”. I’m not sure exactly who he classes as a “6” but probably Bannan Palmer and Chalobah. He seemed to think Shipston or Fusire would the the fifth once but in short we should be expecting one or two new players there then.

That sounds like they would be in safe hands 😅

That would be a great move for him. Wilder was claiming no offers were on the table yesterday but didn’t sound like they could spend much either

OHare a really good player but less so if Hamer moves on as they made a good pair at Coventry. Always seemed quite a dislikeable player and even moreso now. Bogle to Leeds seems to have ruffled a few feathers. Alan Browne to Sunderland seems to be one of the best “free” moves of the window as he has a bit of everything.

Yeah we will need an Ihiekwe (I think he’s our best traditional “defender”) and Diaby is decent when tracking an attacker down the channel but he plays like an individual and was at fault way too many times to be trusted if we want to move forward. Happy to be proven wrong but whilst we do need physical and old school defenders in some scenarios I’m not sure he’s in that bracket either

Great to have Bernard back. As we are playing from the back I think we need to replace Diaby though he’s too erratic. Im intrigued by Rohls reference to looking for diamonds. I wonder if he means rough diamonds or just a bit of ready made quality on loan

I agree that without addressing cb cm and cf then 10th would be really good for this squad. What I think the reality will be though is that the gap between bottom and top six will only be a few points so 10th can feel amazing if you’ve underperformed but frustrating if we feel we could have snuck into 6th. We would have to be really consistent but by the end of last season we were playing some really good football.

Whatever price we agree for Ugbo it won’t be a lump sum anyway. It may be they want more if we hit certain targets or a sell on % but we will be wary of overloading ourselves with caveats as if he was a saleable asset it’s got to be worth our while.

I had randomly seen some footage of Nade before and yeah looked strong as an ox. Reminds me of Cipre at West Brom which is probably why they are also trying to sign him. Equally surprising that we are now linked too.

There certainly seems to have been a change in strategy and appetite again since switching from Xisco to Rohl. I’m intrigued as to whether there are some new ideas behind the scenes, or whether DC has just thought he wants to get back to the 2015 level of quality one last time rather than sell, or perhaps wants to prove people wrong. Maybe all three. Either way it’s welcome I just hope we are not going to lose control of any P&S strategy this time. The investment in a couple of young saleable assets already helps with that