muttywhitedog

They probably are the poorest he’s managed in terms of when he got here, but the “rotten core” that have dragged the club down with their lack of ability, high wages, disrespect for management and general all-round morale-sapping attitude have now been offloaded and Sam has a summer to recruit his type of player to add to the players he brought in January.

As far as comparisons to other sides go, I believe Sunderland have a squad better than the likes of WBA, Bournemouth, Watford, Swansea and Palace (thanks for the £9m for Wickham btw :) ). Since the January window, they are in the top 10 with 26 points from 18 games. Its no co-incidence that once Fletcher, Graham, Gomez, Coates & Pantillimon were shipped out and Kirchoff, Kone & Khazri brought in, the results have improved markedly.

Sam said the other night that £100m is great, but every other club will also have that figure as a starting point, and its about how the money is spent. Now we have ditched this awful DOF model, the inept Chief Exec has gone and given Sam the control over signing his choices, not the DOF’s choices, I think that a top 10 finish with 50+ points is easily achievable next season.

Nicholls has spent almost his entire WAFC career thus far out on loan, and other than a season at Northampton, its not like he’s been getting regular 1st team experience, so other managers are also not giving him game time.

Didn’t Caldwell sign someone from Torquay and then loan him back for the rest of the season? I would expect this guy to be No2 keeper next season and Nichols to be quietly moved on for an “undisclosed fee” – ie they paid him off.

Didn’t Blackpool have exactly the same parachute payments???. Stop being negative mon, its not about the money, its what you do with it that counts. Ask the QPR fans.[/quote]

Indeed they did. I believe the money went into the bank and not on improving the playing staff, which is why the Blackpool fans are so anti-Oyston. They are a cash rich club with no on-field assets to speak of.

In Wigans case, I would imagine most of the parachute payments thus far have gone on salaries to attract the likes of McLean, Carson, Perch etc, then again to help offload them after relegation. Hopefully the £9.2m this year will not be spent on overpriced, overpaid, overrated individuals that have no desire to do well and will agitate for a move and a payoff the moment the chips are down.

I’ll take any compliment going from you lot!

There’s a reason why the premier league has been won by the 4 richest clubs all bar one season so far, (and that was when Jack Walker bought it for Blackburn), and sadly I see the fight to get into the greed league becoming even more difficult come 2017/18.

The amounts being banded around are eye-watering, and as long as clubs insert relegation clauses into contracts at all levels, then the clubs that finish 18th, 19th & 20th will come into the championship with a minimum £155 million to kick-start their promotion campaign. I agree with you about throwing money and big name wages – Villa & Newcastle will be in deep poo next year if they don’t bounce back, and on a lesser scale, you had to flog a lot of last years squad because of their salaries.

I still say Norwich have the advantage at this stage, not just because they have points on the board, but their last two games are Watford & Everton. Sunderland’s are Everton & Watford and thus have to better Norwich in games against Arsenal, Chelsea & Stoke. I think Newcastle’s revival at the moment is just a dead cat bounce, and they will be playing in the 2nd Division next year, particularly as they have to face Spurs on the last day and a “relaxed” Aston Villa (according to Lescott anyway!) the week before.

I hope that as someone who has regularly spoken about bad fixture planning, he will make it a priority to schedule local derbies for the mandatory midweek fixtures rather than Carlisle v Yeovil, and also ensure that due consideration is given to fixtures involving the use of a dual purpose stadium where the other tenants already have a game scheduled that weekend.

I know. Sunderland reputedly have the 8th highest wage bill in the Premier League, and add to the fact that they have the 6th highest average attendance, then those two statements clearly suggest that they are massively underachieving.

As I said a couple of posts back, its down to the geographical location. Top players will not play for anyone other than Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool and the London clubs, because they want the lifestyle and the instant success that goes with playing for one of those clubs. As I said above, the NE clubs end up shelling out ridiculous wages and fees for the likes of Shelvey, Townsend, Johnson, Rodwell. The last two “quality” signings for Sunderland IMHO were Gyan and Bent, and both ended up being sold because their agents found another club that wasn’t in the NE who were prepared to pay them even more than the fat salaries that had tempted them north of the M62! Even the signing of Defoe was at huge expense in terms of salary for a player who had long been courted by Sunderland, but remained on the bench at Spurs for a couple of years instead of making the move 4-5 years ago.