-
The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state and are still being worked on.
Please read this thread for more details.
New user registrations are currently disabled.
Spurs 38 m bid for rigg
- Thread starter Hetty
- Start date
Ale taster
Striker
We'll achieve a very healthy balance sheet and Speakman will replace with some excellent prospects and some who we hardly ever see outside the medical room and one or two who's data defies their ability to kick a ball.
Time for us all to say we demand more for our club than this.
Time for us all to say we demand more for our club than this.
Why would Speakman love that? Surely his professional reputation, earning power & personal satisfaction would be way higher if we got promoted.
Also, apart from Le Bris, we have zero connection with what happened to his time in Lorient, so I doubt we’re going to look & say “eee look, that’s what they did & it went to shit, let’s copy”.
It’s like you’re suggesting everyone associated with the club wants failure. They’ve been quite clear that they need to trade players with a better business mind. But let’s ask a simple question. Come July, would we get more money for Rigg as a Premier League club or a Championship one?
There is absolutely no credibility in saying that Speakman would love it if we don’t go up so he can sell the best players & by a load of unknowns.
Ale taster
Striker
No it's not but I would question their idea of success.
Mine is certainly not existing as an upper half Championship club with the healthiest of balance sheets in the division. To sell best prospects continuously thereby disrupting the squad at best or facing a rebuild at worst every season.
Not like Speakman hits a coconut with every shy is it?
No, but we cannot be naive enough to think anyone considers success to be the championship. It might be a stepping stone, but it’s not the end goal. Unfortunately, you can’t just click your fingers & sign a load of players to get us promoted, cos for every Ipswich, which was an exception, you’ve got countless examples of clubs “going for it” failing & f***ing themselves for years.
I’d love to keep these good players we have, but we have to be realistic that promotion or not, Bellingham & Rigg’s end goal is very likely to be way higher than a standard of team we are likely to achieve.
Speakman was quite clear when Clarke was sold, there was an element of that sale that sale was a genuine attempt to show players they can come to Sunderland & flourish. Whether we like it or not, if we want players like Bellingham, Cirkin, Ballard, Clarke, Mayenda, Mundle etc, it’s pretty certain we are in a better position to get these types of players if we can demonstrate they have a career pathway, rather than putting their eggs in the SAFC basket. Not nice to say as a Sunderland supporter, but potential future international players want this.
However, anyone suggesting we don’t want to get promoted has broken brains. It’s just the way we try & achieve it that is up for debate.
Ale taster
Striker
You make some fair points and thanks for that but there comes a time when we must question what the club is settling for or comfortable with.
I won't stop questioning the areas of strengthening that Speakman seems keen on or staggeringly ignores.
If it is true (as many on here have suggested) that he is truly working under very tight purse strings imposed from above, then by your own hypothesis, the ownership group should release substantial funds very soon.
Any naivety would then become very apparent......
Does anyone nail it with every single signing? The turnaround on the playing side across the whole club single he came has been massive. The squad for money spend is brilliant. Remember he isn’t in control of how much we have to spend. All this done on possibly a profit and if not a very small spend. U21/U18s doing miles better, pathways miles better
Ale taster
Striker
See above.
RichD
Striker
One of the main problems with the current model for me is if we sell off our best players and don't reinvest in the 1st team on the pitch we'll run out of players to sell at some point and then what? plus, we'll see ticket and merchandise sales go down as fans lose interest as the gap at the top of league gets wider...
Paid big money for Aleksic but he had yet to be given his chance. Hopefully next season.
If reports from Hibs are anything to go by maybe Triantis can also play in midfield.
Hawkings Boots
Striker
Find it very difficult to belive that Levy would make an opening offer of that amount
I would suggest that we’ve moved away from what was a very tight set of parameters when we’ve signed the likes of Le Fee on loan. Granted, it’s a short term solution, but you’d imagine we’ll be paying a hefty wage contribution. If we get promoted we’ll have signed a player that seemed a million miles away a year ago.
I’ll not pretend everything is rosey though, we’ve got our challenges, not enough fit full backs, we need competition on the right wing, arguably we’ve taken too many chances on players with poor injury records. But that’s the hand we’re playing with.
I think to go out & do what Sheff Utd did in January isn’t possible purely because we cannot outspend them, even if De Freyus smashed open his piggy bank. At that point we’re gambling. Get promoted, there’s pats on the back all round. Don’t, we could end up penalised & points deductions. The last thing we need to do is to be making up ground.
Even the most pessimistic has got to agree the quality of player we’re signing, on paper at least is moving forward. It’s natural for football fans to always want more, I get that. But you get comments from the footballing world saying we’ve signed a “cheat code” & have the “best player in the league” in Le Fee, then our supporters saying January wasn’t good enough, despite securing Le Fee & our top scorer permanently.
This isn’t me happy clapping, this is just me trying to be realistic about football as a business & the restrictions teams face.
Sea to Shining Sea
Striker
We are absolutely nowhere near that threshold.
Kent_Mackem
Striker
Absolutely this.
If a bid ever did of that size come in for any of our players the club would (quiet rightly) snap the bidding club's hand off.
Mental amount.
January wasn't good enough. We might as well forget about Huggins, he's not kicked a ball in 16 months. Alese too. Both look fantastic but are never available. Hjelde looks very poor, Josh Anderson has looked awful (seen both mentioned as full back cover). Instead of signing a striker with a broken back, cover at right wing and full back are blindingly obvious. Maybe Speakman isn't allowed a right winger though after giving Poveda a three year deal.
Yes the quality has improved massively from League One, well we'd surely hope and expect it too. Don't forget also that the two bits of good / top quality we've signed recently are RLB "signings" in Le Fee and Isidor. Speakmans signings this season include a number of misses (as well as the hits), as they always do:
Connolly - crap and gone
Samed - crap and will be gone
Abdullahi - never played a single minute
Poveda - looks like a big problem
Danns - broken back
The hits:
Browne
Mepham
Moore
Aleksic (probably, if he got game time)
Hopefully the hit to miss ratio is starting to improve, particularly from the army of overseas kids like Pembele, Bennette, Lihadji, Hemir, Ba, Aouchiche, Mayenda, Rusyn, Dajaku. Of those 9 maybe only 1 will have a decent run and impact in our first team, two have already left. Seelt and Triantis came in around the same time and I guess there's hope for them two also.
yep. Imagine if riggs, bellingham watson, mundle stays and add new players, that would be the best window ever lol Definately impossible lol
Ale taster
Striker
Don't accept an early offer on this one. We want an auction including the head choppers.
