He was never going to stay here. There also wasn't any guarantee that we would have went up with him given how little time we'd spent in the top two while he was here.
Got injured shortly after leaving and was out for the rest of the season so mebbe, mebbe not, Could have caught Rodwell disease for all we know. At the end of the day he was offered what he wanted and still decided to leave. **** him.
The lack of ambition in attacking terms from October onwards that was shown while we were on the pitch would have almost certainly seen us ending up in the play offs. Our goals per game changed very little once he left. He certainly was and is miles ahead of Grigg but even with him there were problems with the team defensively and creatively that ****ed us up.
I thought it was pretty clear, Clocky. I agreed with the poster I replied to about how we should move on from our former players.
Yep IF Maja had stayed??? If Bent££ had stayed??? He/they didn't, so we move on...everyone and his wife (except perhaps Ross) thought Grigg was the answer... That has been proved wrong, Ross was sacked and we have 'hoof ball' Parky which is also proving a disaster! We are cursed or doomed and we need some mage to lift the evil spell on us (I am reading my grandson Harry Potter atm)
That's not my memory of it. I remember being very vocal on here about him being a bad signing and there were also a lot of other people questioning it. He can't even score goals in the Championship and his profile is only so big because of that daft song about him. I hope Harry Potter works for us. I'm clinging onto anything now!
The only difference between Bent and Maja, is we did well out of one (Bent), and badly from the other (Maja). In both cases the club could do little about it, but that does not make their subsequent careers inconsequential. Football forums are all about ifs and buts, and if as it looks Mumba follows a similar route, some will be interested, so prepare yourself. Grigg, I had never seen him play until he signed for us, still waiting tbh.
If you are a certain age you may remember Raven on the Wing, (The Valiant?) a talented Gypsy winger, iirc he got a Wise Woman to come and lift the curse off their football ground, perhaps we should getting touch with somebody like that,,,cos we are certainly under a cloud now and have been for a few years...
I don't think talking about a lad who was banging them in for us this time last year and was sold in the middle of a promotion race is 'clinging to our old players'. I think we'd all look at it a little differently if say, O'Nien was being sold in January and he was saying he wanted to stay, but Stewie started setting arbitrary deadlines and doing interviews slagging off the player's agent and stuff like that. Just reading this interview is cringeworthy - Not once does Donald say he actually wants him to stay, he says 3 times that Maja wants to stay. So weird. https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news...ands-approach-future-contract-renewals-171133
Thats why i made a point in saying if your arsed when i wrote this thread. If not why comment . As its already been stated, he was still playing for us this time last year, its hardly clinging on ffs. Selling him impacted our chances of promotion massively when you look on how we replaced him. Alot was said on here and in the press when he moved to France about how much of a bad move hed made, and how he'd thrown his career away etc. Some people like me like to keep our eye on how he's doing out there. If your not bothered then just skip past the thread ffs.
we would have went up with maja in the play off final easy as that. We need Toney or Gayle in January or even both plus a midfielder and 2 defenders.