Sunderland are stepping up their preparations for an important summer transfer window
As part of our On The Whistle video feature, Phil asked fans last week for talking points they'd like to see discussed with the club currently in a prolonged break from fixtures.
The video Q&A is now available on our YouTube page, while Phil will also be producing more detailed written accompaniments in a series here on the Sunderland Echo website. In this edition he answers a question asked by many supporters: What can we expect from Sunderland in the summer transfer window?
When The Echo sat down with Florent Ghisolfi for first first interview as director of football late last year, the conversation inevitably touched on transfers. Ghisolfi made a couple of points that remain instructive as we look ahead to the summer and beyond. The first was that although Sunderland's significant spending last summer had inevitably made many headlines, on overall squad costs they were still lagging behind their Premier League rivals. In short: Sunderland have no choice but to keep investing if they want to stabilise at top-tier level.
The other point, though, was that Sunderland had recruited a lot of young players and that it was essential to give them time to grow. Though Sunderland's unexpected pragmatism in the transfer market last summer as they invested heavily to bring in experienced players such as Granit Xhaka and Nordi Mukiele has been key to their unexpected success, it does not reflect a fundamental rewiring of the club's model. In January Sunderland signed Jocelin Ta Bi, Melker Ellborg and Nilson Angulo: players with varying levels of senior experience at different levels but all fundamentally players with a lot of room for development and for modest fees by Premier League standards.
This remains Sunderland's transfer focus, and Ghisolfi's first comments on the transfer window earlier this week reflected that: "We will improve the team, of course, we'll try but you never know. We'll try but I think the stability will be the most important thing. The same idea as in the winter, I think will be very important."
Sunderland's model is part ideology, and part necessity. As a club they remain committed to protecting the pathway for academy talent, and for giving youngsters from all over the world opportunities when other clubs might still be tentative and harbour doubts. There is a sporting benefit to this in potentially finding a way to close gaps to clubs with bigger budgets, and an obvious financial one in turning a profit that can allow for reinvestment. It's also true that under the new Squad Cost Ratio rules coming into force this summer, they can't spend without consequence. We explained the rules in some detail in this piece, but how they essentially work is by limiting clubs to spending 85% of their revenues (or 70% for clubs in Europe) on their first-team costs. While Sunderland's turnover has soared as a result of their promotion, so too have their playing costs and that was reflected in the figures released on Wednesday that showed their spending on agent fees rose fivefold in the two most recent transfer windows. Ghisolfi said this week that Sunderland don't have to sell to stay within the rules which offers a positive early assessment of their position, but consider as well that the profits they booked on the sales of Jobe Bellingham and Tommy Watson will in future years stop counting towards their SCR calculation. For a multitude of reasons, a spend of last season's scale is simply impossible without major long-term consequence.
So it seems a reasonable assumption that Sunderland will focus on strengthening the squad and building out its depth in a handful of key positions, focusing primarily on high-potential talent but supplemented by a touch of experience. As we looked at in this piece, an addition in central midfield to build the depth behind Granit Xhaka is very possible as are additions in the wide areas and potentially at full back.
The departures of some fringe players who have struggled for minutes this season is also inevitable, perhaps creating more room on the wage bill for investment. A major sale isn't inevitable but most definitely can't be ruled out, as it would help strengthen Sunderland's position for future windows and the form certain players have shown this season could attract the interest of some of Europe’s very biggest clubs. In that scenario it won’t be easy for the club to stand in the way of players and as they demonstrated in the Championship, it doesn’t have to be to the detriment of the club’s overall progress so long as they don’t lose too many key players at once. That their best assets are all on long-term contracts should prevent that, and gives them some element of control.
Last summer was a one-off window in which Sunderland had to act radically to bridge the huge gap to the top tier, and it was a window in which they build the foundations of a side which they think can grow together over the next few seasons. So expect an exciting window with more talented players arriving, but probably without the fireworks of last year.
Continue Reading