
January transfer window – some early thoughts
Sunderland currently sit a fairly miserable 12th place in League 1. As the January Transfer Window approaches, lots of teams will be assessing their options. If you’re 12th and looking towards staying up, I guess it’s a case of hanging onto who you’ve got? Conversely if you’re sitting 12th with a view to going up, it’s more a case of, who can we get rid of and who can we sign?
January transfer window
Historically we’ve done most of our business at the end of January – that’s categorically too late this time round. We have 6 games in January, with only Wycombe at home seeing us play anyone who you’d expect to be in the mix for promotion at the end of the season. We need to strengthen sooner rather than later. A few years ago we swapped Jozy Altidore for Defoe, it’s easy to say what we’d like and need, but sadly we need to be realistic. There’s a lot of factors to consider…..Sunderland’s high earners
- He’s clearly a nice lad committed to the cause
- We all know how good he looked like he was going to be
- Given we know how good he could be, I’m loathe for it to be elsewhere after we had the years of his double rehabilitation
Sunderland’s better players
Luke, Denver and Gooch – we really don’t want to be losing any of these WHAT WAS MISSING LAST SEASON – it was a common assessment that we lacked pace and a bit of cutting edge, (even nastiness dare I say). Ross didn’t address this, I guess we have another chance to do so in the January transfer window? CHRIS MAGUIRE – Most people, (myself included), expected him to be on his way with McGeady. The fact he played Saturday obviously means he’s in our plans. Whilst he’s inconsistent, he does offer some great moments – the corner which he delivered for the goal on Saturday came as a result of a sublime bit of control and shot from him. Inconsistency is obviously frustrating, but…..- If he could do it every week, he wouldn’t be in L1?
- It’s preferable to being consistently shite?

Sunderland Goalkeepers
No concerns here, L1 goalkeepers will always make the odd mistake, (so having 2 decent keepers rather than 1 is healthy). Ultimately if we were to score more than1 goal per game, such mistakes wouldn’t seem so huge. There’s always a chance that someone will come in for JM – every club outside of the Premiership is only an injury away from a goalkeeping crisis? But SAFCBlog doesn’t expect any movement either way.DEFENCE
Our defence is ok, as mentioned when looking at keepers, if we scored more than 1 goal occasionally, the defence certainly wouldn’t be under scrutiny.Midfield
So far this season, the midfield has been a real disappointment. As previously mentioned we lack pace and physicality, we are crying out for a change in the middle; given the following won’t happen……- Dobson toughening up
- Leadbitter getting younger
- Power having a good game
- Ethan Robson is currently on loan at Grimsby and is their best player by a mile, recall him in January
- In the summer, SAFCBlog wrote that we needed to be braver to succeed, Bali Mumba needs to be involved, (even if just on the bench)
- We need to freshen things up, it’s not easy signing decent players when you’re skint, but there is always value out there. SAFC is the biggest club in this league by a mile, players will come here for that reason. I’m no scout, but Kyle Dempsey of Fleetwood is 24 years old and will be on no more than £1.5k per week.
- There must be an opportunity to bring in an experienced midfielder from the championship, under the promise of doing his coaching badges etc. Realistically the Sunderland managers job comes up every 10 months or so, I’m sure they’d be plenty willing to step down the leagues to come here?
sunderland attack
Every team on the land is looking for a genuine goalscorer. SAFCBlog is of the opinion that Will Grigg isn’t that man for us.
- Eoin Doyle Is 31 years old, he’s scored 19 goals in 19 games for Swindon this season, he’s on loan from Bradford City. I’d guess he’d love to play here, I’d guess £200k would be more than enough. SAFCBlog tends to avoid going to Bradford, but it’s only 30 minutes away, I’m more than happy to pop over and give him a lift to Sunderland

- We aren’t about to sign Defoe, but….. Asoro and Maja benefitted hugely from him being at the club. I worry if Benji and Bali are looking towards Grigg for inspiration? I wouldn’t be adverse to signing a striker at the twilight of his career for 12 months, (David Nugent for example)

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Sunderland AFC Club statement, (Alternative version)

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