New Signing Sunday’s….. despite the turbulence surrounding the ownership and prospective sale of the club, we’ve actually done a bit of recruitment, so it’s only right that SAFCBlog looks at these players.

Prior to looking at the new men, I’ll offer the usual irrelevant ramblings…. anyone who reads this Blog regularly will know the drill…..average content, no need to retweet, no ads, no Youtube channel, no fucks given, ….. there’s an argument there’s no point to it, I totally understand that argument. So….. please don’t bother emailing me telling me it’s shite and on occasions ‘fraught with factual inaccuracies’, (cheers Sam T from Swindon), you really are wasting your time, I enjoy writing it and that’s about all there is to say.

Winning 1 vs Losing 0

Yesterday’s result was not of significance, but… always good to win. Take the positives and move on to Tuesday vs Carlisle United and Saturday vs Harrogate Town, we looked fit, we looked good in possession, Jack Diamond looks a player, Maguire’s freekick was stunning…..

Your defence is terrified…..🔥

Will Grigg, Welcome to Wonderland….

Grigg looked sharp when he came on yesterday…… let’s make it a fresh start. Grigg is a goalscorer, thus far it’s not happened. Confidence and momentum in football, (especially with strikers), is huge, this can obviously work both ways. Grigg has never had the air of a man who looks comfortable at Sunderland, it’s obviously easy to say this when his form is shite… but, watching Division 3 means you are quite close to players warming up, stepping off the team bus etc. Will looks for all the world like a man who needs a break? I’m actually not surprised he’s struggled when you consider…..

• Whilst Netflix, (and please don’t even consider that the players haven’t watched it), focused on the naivety and incompetence of Stewart Donald’s negotiation of the deal. It’s worth mentioning, the gaffer said he’s not worth half what we paid and it was assumed he’d get the goals to fire us to promotion…. little wonder why he might feel unloved or under pressure?
• Sunderland 1 vs Blackpool 1, home debut….. misses a decent chance early, (but got in good position etc….), then in the 2nd half rounds the keeper and rolls the ball into the side netting,  the stadium is aghast….. a goal on his home debut could have made all the difference?
• He hasn’t done well, but Jack Ross never played to his strengths.
• So, the man brought in to fire us promotion, didn’t catch fire, didn’t simmer, didn’t even get warm in truth he barely defrosted.
• We didn’t go up in the last fully completed season, because we didn’t deserve to, there were lots of factors – of course if Grigg had scored a few more, 1-1’s become 2-1’s.

New Signings…..

Remi Matthews….the 26 year old keeper joined recently. Parkinson worked with him at Bolton. He actually kept a clean sheet on Boxing Day at the SOL, although he didn’t really have to do much. When we did score, the ref disallowed the goal for no apparent reason. That’s about all I know about him, but every squad needs at least 2 decent keepers, Burge made a couple of good saves yesterday – so the Number 1 slot looks better than it did a few weeks ago. Not sure what Remi is short for, (if at all?), decent name though with a fine history…..

Morgan Fenney…..21 year old defender from a Everton, decent pedigree and rated

Aiden O’Brien…..26 year old striker from Millwall, hopefully decent.

Bailey Wright…..sort of new signing, but a massive boost to the squad. Great player and leader.

So….. in short, (and without doing any research), I don’t know much about the new players – but Parkinson got a decent track record in the transfer market, so hopefully they can help to fire us back up the leagues