‘Ambition’ is something that Sunderland has been criticised for lacking in the past.
Time and again, we believed the club needed to be more ambitious in order to be successful. The season before last was riddled with this and with good reason in all fairness — there was little ambition around when we appointed Michael Beale (shudder) and finished in sixteenth place.
Last season, we were promoted through patience, trusting youth, and also making key signings at the right time. We’re a Premier League club with a Premier League budget and if the rumours are to be believed, the calibre of players on our radar is reflective of this.
When it comes to transfers, a lot of rubbish is posted on social media and there are seemingly fewer ‘reliable sources’ each passing window, but someone who remains a figure of trust to most football fans is Fabrizio Romano.
It’s not often the Italian journalist tweets about the Lads, but when he does, it’s usually pretty accurate and the past week has seen him post about Marcin Bulka, a twenty five year-old Polish goalkeeper.
Marcin Bulka of Poland seen during training before the... Photo by Grzegorz Wajda/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
This was exciting enough, as it seems we’re in a good position to get him, but what I liked more in Romano’s breaking of the story was the way he described the Sunderland situation.
In his tweet, we were described as an ‘ambitious project’.
Romano has almost twenty five million followers on X and no doubt many of these are footballers and their agents. Describing us as such is great for all involved and it makes for a good chance to sit back and realise that regardless of whether or not he’s been asked to use this term, he’s not wrong.
Ambition is something that can intoxicate a club, but not enough of it is easy to see and will ultimately lead to a club not fulfilling its potential.
If we hadn’t been promoted last month, the cries of ‘no ambition’ would’ve been deafening, but we were, and the five-year project to get into the Premier League was completed in the fourth. We have ambition, but we also have a stringent way of doing business and years of this have set us up well to finally push the boat out.
Sheffield United v Sunderland - Sky Bet Championship Play-Off Final Photo by Michael Driver | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Romano-led ‘ambitious project’ social media posts are a reminder to us all of how the outside footballing world now looks at Sunderland.
We can get caught up in the echo chamber of being Lads fans but the groundwork laid during the last few years is being noticed. If the rumours of players we’re talking to this summer are true, the next level of the model is here and I’ll tell you what — I’m so excited.
We’ll likely end up spending a figure close to £75-£80 million this summer, an amount we’ve never spent in a transfer window before. It’s a step into the unknown, but it’ll be as ambitious as Mr Romano makes it out to be.
This is a great time for Sunderland AFC, and it’s almost time to strap in and show the Premier League this new and improved Wearside football club.