Gav says…
Seriously impressed.
Some of the less glamorous stuff will go under the radar, but it shouldn’t.
The fact we didn’t lose a single important player is staggering, really. It was briefly threatened with Chelsea’s approach for Granit Xhaka, but the club held firm and their stance was clear. That was in itself a huge statement for what was to follow, and ahead of the most important season this club has had in years, we’ve retained all of our good players.
Outgoings have been important, though, and the appointment
of Matteo Serra over the summer to help move players out of the door has been key — around fifteen players at the time of writing have already left the club, with more expected to go over the coming days due to transfer windows in other countries still being open.
We got a giant fee for Eliezer Mayenda and it looks like we’re about to cut a decent deal with Ajax for Simon Adingra, which ensures we don’t lose any money on that one. Plus, we got rid of pretty much all of our deadwood and got good loans for some of our talented youngsters.
Then there’s the fact we tied several players down to new deals — including Robin Roefs and Wilson Isidor, who were both subject to interest from other clubs but have committed their futures to us. Both are really important to how we play and I’d have been a bit gutted to have lost either of them, so that was tremendous news.
On top of that, we’ve signed a bunch of big lads, which should seriously help as we were woeful from set plays last season.
We’ve brought in top-level European experience in Thomas Meunier and Kevin Danso, as well as signing one of the most sought-after young wingers in Europe in Malick Fofana, who, despite all the clart, is a fantastic bit of business and someone who would’ve only become available in the last few days of the window anyway because of Lyon’s defeat in the Champions League playoffs.
We gambled on waiting right ‘til the end but we got what we wanted and you can see from the reaction of the Lyon fans that we’ve managed to cut an excellent deal.
On Danso, he seriously excites me and I think he’ll end up being a cracking signing. Like Fofana, it’s comforting seeing so much positivity about him from Spurs fans, who seem miffed they’ve effectively downgraded by letting him go and bringing Tosin in as his replacement.
Dayann Methalie has been tipped to be France’s next long-term left back, and the club went to huge lengths to get him here (and paid a pretty penny in the process). In Juan Riquelme Angulo Caicedo and Jules Ahoka, we’ve brought in two ‘wonderkids’ that didn’t cost much but may well end up being superstars if we nurture them correctly.
I’d have liked an experienced left-footed right winger but in all honesty, I think we have plenty of options on that side of the pitch, so it doesn’t concern me. If anything, it gives Chris Rigg a better pathway and more chances to prove himself, and we can always reassess that position when January rolls around.
All in all, a really solid window where we’re undoubtedly stronger than we were going into it.
8/10 for me.
Daniel Crosbie says…
On results alone, I think it’s been a very good window.
Sunderland have lost nobody of any real significance, added genuine first eleven quality, and strengthened the squad depth to the point where we can now make wholesale changes without suddenly looking like a Championship side. For a club entering Europe only a year after promotion, that’s a major achievement.
I think the approach deserves separating from the outcome, though.
A consistent frustration for many fans across the summer was Sunderland’s reluctance to spend more than £30 million on a player. Understandably, this has been viewed as “penny pinching” and “tight-fistedness” by some elements of the fanbase.
However, I think that’s a misinterpretation.
Rather than lacking ambition, this is the result of European qualification — Sunderland are now subject to UEFA’s strict 70% SCR rules, without the benefit of Champions League TV revenues, and still paying the cost of last summer’s enormous rebuild through wages and amortization.
It’s very striking that three of the four lowest spenders in the league are the three Europa League squads, and within those constraints, patience was almost unavoidable if Sunderland wanted players above the level their immediate budget would ordinarily buy.
Malick Fofana is the obvious example and Lyon’s late need to sell, after missing out on Champions League revenue, suddenly made an elite young attacker available at a price Sunderland were prepared to pay, and that opportunity wouldn’t have existed in July.
The danger, of course, is that patience can become vulnerability. Deadline day descended into exactly the sort of chaos Sunderland usually try to avoid, and Crystal Palace came extraordinarily close to taking Fofana after all that work.
In that context, though, I think the final business looks even more impressive.
Sunderland remained disciplined, retained the core of an already good Premier League side, and still managed to add both quality and serious depth.
I would’ve liked a natural left-footed right winger, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was a very successful window conducted under some very tight constraints.
Jack Howe-Gingell says…
Was it perfect? Probably not.
If there’s one lingering question mark, it’s the lack of a natural right winger. That position felt like it could’ve done with strengthening, particularly given the step up with the Europa League.
That said, I find it hard to be overly critical when recent history dictates that the recruitment team deserve the benefit of the doubt. We spent much of last season without a recognised right winger and still delivered our best campaign in recent memory. The recruitment model has earned trust because more often than not, the decisions have proves to be the right ones.
More importantly, this window wasn’t built around volume — it was built around quality. It also shouldn’t be ignored that we retained all of ours, where we easily could have lost several.
Thomas Meunier brings proven experience at the highest level.
Kevin Danso adds strength, leadership and another genuine left-sided centre back, while Dayann Methalie and Malick Fofana arrive with the kind of talent and potential to excite (particularly after Fofana’s Dream Team inspired deadline day drama).
The way Fofana was obtained felt a major statement in itself from our leadership. Meanwhile, Jules Ahoka and Juan Riquelme Angulo Caicedo look like exactly the sort of ceiling-raising young prospects we’ve become adept at identifying.
When I look at the squad as a while, I see genuine quality added, weaknesses addressed and a clear continuation of a recruitment strategy that has transformed the club over recent years.
On balance, it’s hard to not view it as a successful summer.
Malc Dugdale says…
I think the club’s approach to the window has been pretty spot on.
If anyone has expectations of way more, they may be a bit displaced for me. We arrived at this level a bit more than a year ago and we’re now battling with teams around the world to get the best players we can. It’s not easy.
No team gets every first choice player they were after, nor develops every position they want to, and all teams will have priorities they must achieve, and “nicer to have” areas where they’ll improve if they can. We did well across most areas and that isn’t easy.
Reflecting on the period, we’ve made good additions, reduced the deadwood well to stay in control around SCR, and lost none the core players which did us so well last season. That’s got to be seen as a strong summer business period.
Many a team in our position in the past have exited that process asset stripped and struggling to survive — that’s a shop window where a lot of teams become prey to the upper echelons of the football hierarchy especially after we did so well last season.
We are aeons away from that.
The real measure of success will be how the new players pan out across the coming months. They won’t be introduced immediately but based on Regis’s past approach they will be blended in with a controlled and measured method.
I’d expect more sooner from the likes of Meunier (already contributing well) Danso, Methalie and Fofana, and probably a bit less but more to come later from the likes of Ahoka and JR Angulo.
While we didn’t get a full-blown right winger, we’ve added a lot of quality and experience alongside a raft of experience and athleticism. Clearly the right wing wasn’t Sunderland’s top priority, even if it was for the fans, or I’m sure we would’ve sorted it, and we may well revisit this in January if that’s needed to kick on.
We exit the window in better shape than we went into it — we spent a canny but reasonable amount of cash and improved our chances of matching or beating last season’s achievements, while also doing well in Europe.
If anyone says that’s a bad window, I’m not sure they know what good is. Not perfect, but nothing too shabby at all.
Martin Wanless says…
Squad development is a continual thing and not something that’s going to be perfected in a summer transfer window. The club would want to strengthen every position ideally, but you can’t do that all at once — it’s got to be done relatively gradually unless you find yourself in a situation as we did last summer.
This summer, we’ve not needed to add too many players.
We’ve strengthened in some places we needed strengthening, bought some serious potential, and kept all of the other players who got us to seventh last season. There’s a lot of strength in stability, and that often gets overlooked in football, where the new, shiny thing often dominates.
We’d all have liked the right new players in early, but a good transfer transfer window isn’t spending the most amount of money, or signing the most amount of players — it’s about keeping the players you want to keep, getting the right players in, for the right price, in the positions we need to complement them when they’re available. And not panicking to sign ‘anyone’ if the right ones don’t become available right now
Yeah, we left it late, probably took a few risks I probably wouldn’t have, and the mood could’ve been a bit different if certain players hadn’t arrived yesterday, but, in the cold light of day, the club’s played it well, and has done exactly what they said they were going to: got five to six players in — a ‘precise’ approach to positions and spend.
We’ve got — what — twenty-odd games until we can look to sign people again? If we have to go twenty-odd games rotating people on the right hand side then that’s absolutely fine, as it will be if we have to go fifty. These players got us to seventh last season, and have all improved.
What it does mean is that there’s a massive opportunity on the right hand side for Diarra/Angulo/Talbi/Rigg/Mundle/Ta Bi or whoeever else to grab.
If they can get past Trai Hume, that is…
Matthew Donne says…
I think the club has sensibly added some quality to the squad and I’m really excited to see what the new lads can offer in the season ahead.
I’m particularly interested to see the likes of Jules Ahoka and ‘Angulo II’ (Angulo the Great) as they’ve come in as relative unknowns with huge potential.
But the main point is that we’ve not lost a single player that we didn’t want to lose. Brian Brobbey, Granit Xhaka, Robin Roefs, Noah Sadiki etc have all had reported interest and/or bids rejected.
We’re substantially better off now than we were this summer and the offloading of players has also been something of a wonder — well played, Mr Serra.
Tom Albrighton says…
It’s hard to really know how to rate Sunderland’s business this summer.
For many, this window will represent the possibility for missing a high opportunity to flood the squad with talent on the eve of our first European season for years, whilst others will be content.
Whilst incomings weren’t en masse, the additions of Dayann Methalie, Kevin Danso and Malick Fofana (props to Uncle Bouba for making him make the right choice) should in theory add some quality and depth. In contrast, Jules Ahoka and Juan Riquelme Angulo Caicedo, naturally, are two complete unknowns.
Naturally, there’ll be some worries about the club not bringing in a more primed option in midfield and a fabled right winger — complaints that would be legitimate.
As a result, the strength of Sunderland’s window for me doesn’t stand on the limited business that’s been conducted but by that which hasn’t, maintaining almost the entirety of last season’s European-earning squad including the talismanic Granit Xhaka.
Whether the limited additions make a large impact will remain to be seen, and whilst reports from Europe suggest both Fofana and Methalie represent impressive transfer coups, the lack of volume to this window will likely emphasize all the major signings providing tangible impact.
Overall, for me, it’s a “middle of the road” window that could easily sway towards excellent or calamitous based on the output of our three major incomings.
