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This is why I’ll never be comfortable with the model

McGregor said:
In the grand scheme of things, 30 million quid for Clarke and Stewart having paid less than 2 million quid is absolutely cracking work.

I just can't understand the timing of the Clarke one. Pretty much the day before a game. And we could have easily gotten more for Clarke.
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I don’t think we’d get a lot more to be honest. There has been interest for a year now but no one has really taken the bait. This won’t have been decided this week. They’ll have been talking to clubs and dealing with enquiries for months and months. They’ll know by now what people are willing to pay

Clarke is worth more than that to us perhaps but not to a premier league club. He’s knocking on 24 so clubs aren’t paying for untapped potential or the benefit of him counting as home grown after 3 years like an under 20 year old would. He’s perceived as failing at that level before although I think that’s harsh.

You could argue we shouldn’t sell in that case but that’s what we’ve been doing for over a year now and it’s not always as easy as that for clubs in our position
 

The Beautiful Game said:
I don’t think we’d get a lot more to be honest. There has been interest for a year now but no one has really taken the bait. This won’t have been decided this week. They’ll have been talking to clubs and dealing with enquiries for months and months. They’ll know by now what people are willing to pay

Clarke is worth more than that to us perhaps but not to a premier league club. He’s knocking on 24 so clubs aren’t paying for untapped potential or the benefit of him counting as home grown after 3 years like an under 20 year old would. He’s perceived as failing at that level before although I think that’s harsh.

You could argue we shouldn’t sell in that case but that’s what we’ve been doing for over a year now and it’s not always as easy as that for clubs in our position
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Maybe not a lot more, but could we have pushed for more ? Without a doubt we could have pushed that deal to 25 million. Think the club have dropped a bit of a clanger imo. But we expected him to leave eventually .

Now the two strikers coming in doesn't seem like we're on the right path. It has to be those two strikers AND a new LW for big money
 
I think people need to look at previous business to understand that it looks like the club have genuinely tried on this one, and the move has clearly been driven by the player/agent. When that happens there’s nothing you can do really.

1. They’ve rejected previous offers of the same value as this.

2. They managed to get 10m for a completely crocked Ross Stewart, from this alone I believe the negotiation team here would have been desperate to get more for Clark

3. Stories kept miraculously leaking out about bids from teams like Leeds, until they signed a winger themselves then stories of bids from Ipswich started appearing. Something was clearly being leaked.

4. We’ve pretty much kept the same 7 core players for almost four seasons now.

Sometimes a player wants to leave a club there’s nothing you can do about it.
 
As You Were said:
People will point out after years of Jack Rodwell style signings it’s nice to see us making profits on players. First Stewart now Clarke. 2 out of 3 seasons now we have sold our best player. It might look good on the books and be financially good for the club but is this what you really want Sunderland football club to be? A club that sells its best players to clubs half our size. I was gutted when stewart left and i’m gutted clarke is leaving.

If KLD was owner when kevin phillips was here he would have flogged him after his first good season for profit.

Nice to make profit but better to build a team around our best players and keep them and let fans build connection with the players like quinn and phillips etc.

How well we spend the money i guess will tell us just how good the model is.
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Simple answer to that is no why can ya not get these players n have success over money. It’s not like we’re paying a fortune for them so my question now woukd be why do we have to sell we can’t be in debt anymore the clubs been ran on a shoe string for years
 
I think the fee we’re receiving is pathetic. Especially looking at the money being bandied about for average shite. £15m for the best winger in the Championship. :lol: Which idiot has signed off on that?

I believe we got £10m for Stewart so that’s £25m brought in in the last year yet we’ve spent fuck all.

Budget billionaire KLD can get fucked.
 
McGregor said:
Maybe not a lot more, but could we have pushed for more ? Without a doubt we could have pushed that deal to 25 million. Think the club have dropped a bit of a clanger imo. But we expected him to leave eventually .

Now the two strikers coming in doesn't seem like we're on the right path. It has to be those two strikers AND a new LW for big money
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We’ve been pushing for more for over a year though. It’s not like this is the first enquiry they’ve dealt with. I can’t see them knocking back higher bids then just randomly accepting this one from Ipswich.

He’s worth more than that to us no doubt. He’s not a £25m player though and he’s not worth that to a premier league club. Hence going to Ipswich. Those excessive fees go to younger players with untapped potential or ones who will count as home grown in 3 years. Then there’s players like Summerville who’ve already had one decent prem season. We know it’s harsh but I think clarkes last spell in the prem works against him, he’s perceived as having tried and failed before. If the player wants to go it forces our hand a little. It’s all on the board now to use what we’ve got wisely.

Remember Clarke was one of those unproven and unloved kids with barely any appearances when we signed him
 
The idea of bringing young players in ,developing them and selling them for a tidy profit
I do have a problem though with selling the jewel in the crown for an absolute pittance
Sunderland have always been a soft touch in regards to transfer fees for selling our players though so not surprising tbh
 
As You Were said:
People will point out after years of Jack Rodwell style signings it’s nice to see us making profits on players. First Stewart now Clarke. 2 out of 3 seasons now we have sold our best player. It might look good on the books and be financially good for the club but is this what you really want Sunderland football club to be? A club that sells its best players to clubs half our size. I was gutted when stewart left and i’m gutted clarke is leaving.

If KLD was owner when kevin phillips was here he would have flogged him after his first good season for profit.

Nice to make profit but better to build a team around our best players and keep them and let fans build connection with the players like quinn and phillips etc.

How well we spend the money i guess will tell us just how good the model is.
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Personally I think we did well getting shot of Stewart. He’s a fantastic centre forward at this level. However his injury record is atrocious. Southampton paid up 10 million for him and he’s been more or less injured for the last year.
We could paid him what he wanted and kept him but chances are he would have been keeping the physios busy and not playing.
Clarke was always going to go. 15 million is cheap for him but the only reason Spurs sold us Clarke was they thought Mundle was a better prospect.
 
As You Were said:
People will point out after years of Jack Rodwell style signings it’s nice to see us making profits on players. First Stewart now Clarke. 2 out of 3 seasons now we have sold our best player. It might look good on the books and be financially good for the club but is this what you really want Sunderland football club to be? A club that sells its best players to clubs half our size. I was gutted when stewart left and i’m gutted clarke is leaving.

If KLD was owner when kevin phillips was here he would have flogged him after his first good season for profit.

Nice to make profit but better to build a team around our best players and keep them and let fans build connection with the players like quinn and phillips etc.

How well we spend the money i guess will tell us just how good the model is.
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You do realize without 'the model' Stewart or Clarke wouldn't be on anybody transfer list. The reality is we take players who have all the ability but haven't achieved or search for a gem and turn them into players we can profit off at the least but ultimately the goal is to get as high as possible as we can. Undoubtedly along the way we will have to sell the odd top performer which will then be spent on other players to make the team more complete. We have to give it time. Days like today are inevitable unless we are in the prem. Trust the process. By God the owners have made horrendous mistakes off the pitch but we have to believe going forward as we have no other option and have gone from a club on the verge of bankruptcy to a club where are selling player when we need to for massive profits. It is what is. We will always be here but the players won't regardless how good or bad we are. The fact is every approach before this one hasn't worked so let's see it through because we have gone through some utter shite the last 24 years.
 
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As You Were said:
People will point out after years of Jack Rodwell style signings it’s nice to see us making profits on players. First Stewart now Clarke. 2 out of 3 seasons now we have sold our best player. It might look good on the books and be financially good for the club but is this what you really want Sunderland football club to be? A club that sells its best players to clubs half our size. I was gutted when stewart left and i’m gutted clarke is leaving.

If KLD was owner when kevin phillips was here he would have flogged him after his first good season for profit.

Nice to make profit but better to build a team around our best players and keep them and let fans build connection with the players like quinn and phillips etc.

How well we spend the money i guess will tell us just how good the model is.
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One of our worst mistakes was not selling Phillips.
Kept him till he was worth fuck all and got relegated with him anyway
 
The Beautiful Game said:
We’ve been pushing for more for over a year though. It’s not like this is the first enquiry they’ve dealt with. I can’t see them knocking back higher bids then just randomly accepting this one from Ipswich.

He’s worth more than that to us no doubt. He’s not a £25m player though and he’s not worth that to a premier league club. Hence going to Ipswich. Those excessive fees go to younger players with untapped potential or ones who will count as home grown in 3 years. Then there’s players like Summerville who’ve already had one decent prem season. We know it’s harsh but I think clarkes last spell in the prem works against him, he’s perceived as having tried and failed before. If the player wants to go it forces our hand a little. It’s all on the board now to use what we’ve got wisely.

Remember Clarke was one of those unproven and unloved kids with barely any appearances when we signed him
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In hindsight it's a cracking fee for a player we paid peanuts for. There is a bigger picture here, but the club simply have to use that money to buy outright quality and not potential
 
Steve F said:
Hello mate, the trouble is they won’t!
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Well we just have to wait and see I suppose. These two strikers was such a step in the right direction and this happens.

But if we can find a player that can be even half as decent as Clarke, with strikers that actually scores goals, then I don't think it'll be anywhere near as bad as people are making out.
 
McGregor said:
Well we just have to wait and see I suppose. These two strikers was such a step in the right direction and this happens.

But if we can find a player that can be even half as decent as Clarke, with strikers that actually scores goals, then I don't think it'll be anywhere near as bad as people are making out.
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The lad playing in Russia has in the last year played 500 mins of football, depending on who you believe his best position is wide left. The Croatian does look a very good player as several have said an uncanny resemblance to Stewart. The £15m fee for Clarke plus add ons is beyond a joke.
 
As You Were said:
People will point out after years of Jack Rodwell style signings it’s nice to see us making profits on players. First Stewart now Clarke. 2 out of 3 seasons now we have sold our best player. It might look good on the books and be financially good for the club but is this what you really want Sunderland football club to be? A club that sells its best players to clubs half our size. I was gutted when stewart left and i’m gutted clarke is leaving.

If KLD was owner when kevin phillips was here he would have flogged him after his first good season for profit.

Nice to make profit but better to build a team around our best players and keep them and let fans build connection with the players like quinn and phillips etc.

How well we spend the money i guess will tell us just how good the model is.
Click to expand...
people have got to grasp that Sunderland have the biggest operational costs, infrastructure, Cat 1 academy with the same return from tv etc. as the likes of Oxford and Plymouth. Its a frugal approach to get us to the promised land as well as frustrating for fans losing your best players but we need to accept it, im sure we will get there hopefully sooner rather than later!

Until we are on a level playing field financially with the top tier its gonna happen
 
McGregor said:
Well we just have to wait and see I suppose. These two strikers was such a step in the right direction and this happens.

But if we can find a player that can be even half as decent as Clarke, with strikers that actually scores goals, then I don't think it'll be anywhere near as bad as people are making out.
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I’m must admit I’m pretty excited by Simic.

The French lad from Russia though - less so. At the end of the day we are shopping in that morally suspect market for a reason. The club believe they can sign a player on the cheap who might just go onto bigger things. It feels like another Aouchiche signing.
 
Steve F said:
The lad playing in Russia has in the last year played 500 mins of football, depending on who you believe his best position is wide left. The Croatian does look a very good player as several have said an uncanny resemblance to Stewart. The £15m fee for Clarke plus add ons is beyond a joke.
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I agree with the fee. At the very least I'd be accepting 20 million with the add ons but nowt can be done now. Isidor looks exciting, if he plays on the left wing and does a job we'll be happy . But something tells me the Mendy deal is nowhere near dead if Isidor plays left.

I would honestly be happy enough with Isidor, Simic and Mendy.
 
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