Most injured player since signing sick vic(anichebe). Dike seems a nice bloke too which adds to the shame. Maybe he will think about retiring or go back to america. Looks like all season be relying on asante so based on that if we get play offs we have majorly overachieved.
Guochaun Lai has agreed a deal to repay a loan to Warmfront Holdings after Alex Hearn decided to accept a smaller sum and waived the default interest rate. The loan, which had grown to £4m, was set to snowball in size as the default interest rate kicked in, potentially giving Hearn the right to claim a larger stake in the club. As a result, Hearn had been in talks about joining Chris Farnell’s bid for the club as a minority partner. However, with Patel’s bid now in the lead, Hearn has agreed to let Lai repay him in three instalments over the next 18 months instead - timed for when payments from Patel would be made to Lai for control of the club. It's a miracle
Bilkul Football WBA reaches agreement for West Bromwich Albion takeover | West Bromwich Albion Great news. Long over due. Lai era over!
The reaction to the news last night and this morning is great to see. Exciting and relieved are the main 2. We was on the verge of something very bad happening under lai. First port of call has to be to get corberan on a long term deal. We better not get rid. Here's hoping we have some money to spend in the summer regardless if we don't get promoted or not. Stay down, back corberan and we will put in a top 2 challenge.
Not sure if any of you have seen but Doncaster City FC have signed Ross McCormack, Wes Hoolahan and Charlie Mulgrew on short term deals. That'd be a decent Championship trio 5 year ago. They're owned by Willie McKay so have some money, he's only signed them to play top of the league. They've all started today. Edit: rumour has it Mulgrews getting 3K for this one game.
Hadn't seen that but they could do with putting Mulgrew on free kicks and maybe penalties. Reminds me of the fact that Ben Marshall now plays for Darwen FC and he's only 32 still but career went off the rails a bit.
Bloke who I know was talking to McKay at the game and he said that they were also meant to bringing in Snodgrass but couldn’t sort it in time
Last season we were caught up in a crazy points tally in league one. This season the same thing is happening. We're 4th in the league, yet only 10 teams in history have had the amount of points we have at this stage of the season. It's going to be frustrating to see us lose in the play offs, especially if we end up with a points total that usually means promotion! That's the way it goes though...This season is crazy.
Not sure if there is a general finance thread so just sticking it in here. Anyone else released their figures yet? It's not looking great at QPR. We are going to be very close to breaching FFP. We don't spend much yet we are a loss making machine. We don't even offer high wages, around 13k is our highest I think. Chair is on around £10k; surprised he hasn't tried to move elsewhere, he could get a lot more.
Last season Sunderland finished 6th on 69 points. We currently have the same only with 13 games to go. It is ridiculous. Wonder if it will be different next season with Blades, Burnley and Luton potentially as the parachute clubs. Don’t think all three of them will be as good as what we have this year. Who knows.
Out of interest, and I know some of the Southampton fans have said as such, but for those who’ve been in the Premier League & struggled do you enjoy the EFL (Champ or L1) more than the Prem? I only ask because I have vastly differing opinions to a lot of our support on the Sunderland Message Board. I’m quite happy at spending another 2 or 3 seasons at this level and continue to progress while developing young, exciting players. These past 2 and a bit years have been some of the most enjoyable I’ve ever had watching us, starting from Alex Neil taking over in L1 to the swashbuckling football we played under Mogga last season.
First season or two back in the PL is nice, afterwards becomes a chore. Champ ten times more fun in my experience.
Lower league football is a much better social experience if you attend the matches. There is also a sense of having something to play that gets lost during a longer Premier League stay. Only thing you can realistically go for is a cup, and that requires some luck. Then you might get a season in Europe thrown in. Your end goal is to stay up, with a potential cup run, but Premier League teams are starting to moan about having to play them and 9/10 they are won by the greed 6 who don't value them. Armchairs will prefer the top flight due to access and higher quality players. I don't particularly care about the latter, although some players are memorable for that reason (Some of them we had in this division however, such as Jay-Jay Okocha).
Major pros of EFL: (1) No VAR; (2) at least the possibility of success without needing nation state wealth; (3) less outright corruption by wealthy teams throwing their weight around; (4) not having to constantly listen to and watch fawning nonsense over the Super League twats; (5) fewer hangers-on and plastic tourist fans; (6) the ability for clubs to broadcast pretty much every match on their websites.
