The signing of Connor Wickham three years earlier had seemed like a huge coup by Steve Bruce. The young Ipswich striker was the talk of football at the time, and at just 18 had the physicality and seeming
the ability to really make an impact in the game.
Fast foward three years, however, and things hadn’t worked out quite as the club – or Wickham – would have hoped.
The striker was coming towards the final six months of his deal at Sunderland, and while talks over a new contract had been ongoing since the summer, an agreement hadn’t been reached – Wickham uncertain about signing a new deal.
That in itself was surprising. He’d ended the season in the first team, playing an important role as Sunderland completed ‘the great escape’. To date during this season, he’d started all but one game, scoring just one goal.
With speculation surrounding his future, and Lazio linked with a cut-price £450,000 move for the striker, Gus Poyet was in a pragmatic mood about the future of his young striker.
If he wants to do it, that’s his decision. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. It’s easy to only see it from your perspective, not the other side. But Connor is still playing, there has been no ban. I’ve not said if you don’t sign you don’t play.
There hasn’t been different treatment, but he needs to make a decision that’s best for his career. If he wants to go somewhere else and play in Europe, fine, that’s his decision. I’m not going to be a hypocrite.
My son did it in June. He left Charlton for West Ham, they agreed compensation … see you later. My son had the option to go to Europe, but he didn’t. Everyone is free to do what they want.
Poyet deflected responsibility on getting a deal done to sporting director Lee Congerton, who the Uruguayan said he’d left to handle the negotiations.
, and everything was fine; it was just a case of starting negotiations. I talked to Connor in the summer and everything was fine, it was just a case of starting negotiation. I stay out of it, that’s better for me as a manager. I don’t want to know if he is going to earn more than this player or less than that one. It’s simple for me not to get involved.
It goes both ways, if the club don’t give you a new contract the closer you get to the end, the more chance there is of you getting an injury and getting nothing from somewhere else. I took that risk. I left it to the last minute.
My advice is to make the decision yourself. Of course listen to your parents, girlfriend, best friend, his agent. With all the information they give you, make the decision yourself. If they all agree, it is common sense, but do what makes sense to you based on what you want. If he makes the decision I will respect it, good or bad.
There was a suggestion the Lazio rumour was a tactic to force the club to offer improved terms – a reminder that the club would only recoup a paltry slice of the £8m Bruce had spent.
The tactics, if that’s what they were, eventually worked. In mid-December, Wickham signed a new four-and-a-half-year deal with the club and kept his place, starting 31 and making a further 5 substitute appearances in 38 Premier League games as Sunderland once again just about survived.
That summer, however, he did – surprisingly – leave. A bid of £7m, potentially rising to £9m, from Crystal Palace was accepted, and Wickham’s Sunderland career came to a bit of an abrupt end.
Still, we’ll always have the great escape!
