Stewart Donald anyone.....

Ironically, for the right reasons they did themselves over by either not selling Maja and keeping his goals until the end of the season, or at least keeping him at the club and refusing to sell him until they already had a replacement signed on.

So again, I don't wanna keep piling on Stuart Donald - because I do like the guy. But I absolutely agree with this.

The Maja/Grigg decisions - made less than a month apart - were completely inconsistent and illogical.

First, he makes sure he gets 1.5m Euros for Maja rather than allow his contact to expire (and yes, it was idiocy by the previous regime that it got to that position - there is no reason not to get your best young players signed up for 3-4 years just as they're breaking through. We generally do e.g. Nico Jones, Shandon Baptiste). This is the guy who's scored 15 goals in the first half of the season, and 4 in your last 6 games and has really been the only thing keeping the team up near the top of the table.
I don't even know for sure they would have got nothing if he'd just signed with Bordeaux on a free - don't you get tribunal fees for moves to clubs in the European Union?
So he's let the best chance of securing promotion (which will be worth many millions) walk out the door for 1.5m Euros.

Then he turns round and pays 1.75m quid more than his football advisors are telling him Will Grigg's worth, because he knows that promotion is worth much more than that, and he's absolutely desperate.


I know that Maja's agent was being an a**e - and he's the one who made out like a bandit because a transfer fee was paid - but it's hard to imagine, seeing the kid on screen, that the guy was going to be terminally disruptive to the squad if he was made to stay for an additional six months.

Donald just absolutely clowned himself that transfer window. Bought and sold on emotion, not logic - and you can't do that as a football chairman
 
I know that Maja's agent was being an a**e - and he's the one who made out like a bandit because a transfer fee was paid - but it's hard to imagine, seeing the kid on screen, that the guy was going to be terminally disruptive to the squad if he was made to stay for an additional six months.
I dunno - he was quite cheeky and smirky when being asked about his situation a couple of times. Not saying he’s a rotter or that he’s some sort of supervillain, just that I think he would’ve been aware of what his agent was doing and was fine to go along with it. He looked pretty complicit.

All it takes in the situation that they tell him he’s staying put is for him to suddenly have a tight hammy or keep feeling tweaks in his groin for a few months. Happens all the time. We all remember Marvin Johnson sulking for nearly the whole of August the other year, which meant by the end he either wasn’t playing, or if he did feature off the bench was just trotting around at barely 50%. Sunderland had just had to deal with a full year of multiple players going AWOL, or sitting in the treatment room refusing to declare themselves fit. I think their fears that he wouldn’t play ball and finish the season, and therefore they’d lose his goals anyway, were understandable.
 
If Sunderland had got promoted that first season, and gone on to sell the club for a decent price in the Championship, the bag-carriers would all be hailing Madrox as financial geniuses who pulled off a massive deal, all the while doing it with short term measures like a cheap manager, and splashing out on Griggs to get them over the line.

Who knows what happens here though. I guess the market for buying football clubs has dropped off a cliff right now, with potential rich owners perhaps thinking more of preserving capital than spending on a train set. And with the running costs at Sunderland still I think significantly higher than elsewhere, it needs subsidising from somewhere.
 
If Sunderland had got promoted that first season, and gone on to sell the club for a decent price in the Championship, the bag-carriers would all be hailing Madrox as financial geniuses who pulled off a massive deal, all the while doing it with short term measures like a cheap manager, and splashing out on Griggs to get them over the line.
And if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle. It didn't happen. And why not? Quite possibly because they tried to get away with a cheap manager and spent far too much on Grigg, relying on him for goals and performances that just never arrived.
 
Which I hope didn’t happen at the time and still don’t!
Likewise, but it seems we’ve been as guilty as they were, and with regards to the same player in the same window. The difference is that our flailing around didn’t come off like theirs did, but we tried to do the exact same thing. Merely thought it worth highlighting for those who were making out our own processes are perfect.
 
Likewise, but it seems we’ve been as guilty as they were, and with regards to the same player in the same window. The difference is that our flailing around didn’t come off like theirs did, but we tried to do the exact same thing. Merely thought it worth highlighting for those who were making out our own processes are perfect.

Certainly not suggesting that our processes are perfect - there's undoubtedly a fair amount of last minute emotional panicking and flailing that goes on at OUFC as well too.

It is certainly the case, however, that we're better at locking down our most promising academic graduates for a few years, so we don't have our hands forced like Sunderland did with Maja (yes, we still sold Shandon - but at least we got closer to value for him; we weren't negotiating looking down the barrel).

And I hope/believe that, on the 'buy' side at least, KR gets more input into the signings than Jack Ross apparently did at Sunderland.

That being said, it's possible that some deals - the Jamie Hanson purchase, for example - went down similarly to what we saw on screen at Sunderland!
 
Certainly not suggesting that our processes are perfect - there's undoubtedly a fair amount of last minute emotional panicking and flailing that goes on at OUFC as well too.

It is certainly the case, however, that we're better at locking down our most promising academic graduates for a few years, so we don't have our hands forced like Sunderland did with Maja (yes, we still sold Shandon - but at least we got closer to value for him; we weren't negotiating looking down the barrel).

And I hope/believe that, on the 'buy' side at least, KR gets more input into the signings than Jack Ross apparently did at Sunderland.

That being said, it's possible that some deals - the Jamie Hanson purchase, for example - went down similarly to what we saw on screen at Sunderland!

I don’t know how many they’ve lost ....?

Curtis Nelson and Chey Dunkley went a little cheap though didn’t they ?
 
Watching the series they were crying out for a decent centre back and in my opinion should have pushed the boat out for Nelse, I know he is probably on. decent wage at Cardiff and currently (when we start again) in the premier, but he certainly would have sorted their defence out.
 
I skipped thru most but as a person who did take the P**s out of Charlies Walter Mitty antics in the past,(oxford mail site ;) )i must admit he did come across quite well,the bint got what she deserved imo she was usless....was funny him getting told by the missus when he got a bit over excited at Wembley.....SD came across as a bit naive over some football matters but did care.....i wouldnt mind them running our club,not sure its gonna work oop Narth as they hate southerners really. by the way.....anyone else think that Charlie is Robert Maxwells love child????
 
So Stu & Co took over Sunderland on the cheap looking to flip it later to make a tidy profit and walk away.
They get shafted by the previous owner by either not doing due diligence (CM) properly or not spending the money to get it carried out by professionals to find the odd £10m hidden here and there.
The club was leaching money everywhere with the previous owner just signing the cheque and the staff ambivalent of the clubs situation, they were getting paid regardless.
Stu & co went in there looking to get rid of the deadwood, shake up and stream line the backroom staff to fit the financial model that they hoped to achieve to get the costs down and make the club look a more enticing project for the next owners and a saleable club.
They almost achieved that but for the fact they lost twice to a Portsmouth side, you can blame the manager/backroom staff for not securing their assets and were lacking in the transfer market overall.
For what they set out to do it almost worked and the next series would of been about the new owners, the way they handled the transfer and financial situations it doesn't look like they had the nous, appetite or finances to deal with the championship and the spiralling costs that would of brought.
If they were there for a season and got promotion they could of flipped the club and walked away with a bundle of money, fair play to them on taking the risk, but now this situation from the outside seems to be a drain emotionally and financially on them, for CM to say they are solvent but had to "borrow" £10m to fix lifts etc seems a bit of a stretch.
It's a very entertaining series with some great moments, I do wonder if there is a series 3 and that will focus on this seasons tribulations.
 
So Stu & Co took over Sunderland on the cheap looking to flip it later to make a tidy profit and walk away.
They get shafted by the previous owner by either not doing due diligence (CM) properly or not spending the money to get it carried out by professionals to find the odd £10m hidden here and there.
The club was leaching money everywhere with the previous owner just signing the cheque and the staff ambivalent of the clubs situation, they were getting paid regardless.
Stu & co went in there looking to get rid of the deadwood, shake up and stream line the backroom staff to fit the financial model that they hoped to achieve to get the costs down and make the club look a more enticing project for the next owners and a saleable club.
They almost achieved that but for the fact they lost twice to a Portsmouth side, you can blame the manager/backroom staff for not securing their assets and were lacking in the transfer market overall.
For what they set out to do it almost worked and the next series would of been about the new owners, the way they handled the transfer and financial situations it doesn't look like they had the nous, appetite or finances to deal with the championship and the spiralling costs that would of brought.
If they were there for a season and got promotion they could of flipped the club and walked away with a bundle of money, fair play to them on taking the risk, but now this situation from the outside seems to be a drain emotionally and financially on them, for CM to say they are solvent but had to "borrow" £10m to fix lifts etc seems a bit of a stretch.
It's a very entertaining series with some great moments, I do wonder if there is a series 3 and that will focus on this seasons tribulations.
I've just finished watching it and that's a fair summary. Stuart Donald seems a nice enough, genuine kind of person. Great entertainment. Hate to say this but I even felt for the Sunderland supporters at the end. 'When's it going to be our turn? Sob. Sob'
 

Bad news for Donald....if Newcastle get a dream ticket owner of a sovereign wealth fund from Saudi and the Mackems watch this the delusion of expectation will Sky rocket and put more pressure on him
 

Bad news for Donald....if Newcastle get a dream ticket owner of a sovereign wealth fund from Saudi and the Mackems watch this the delusion of expectation will Sky rocket and put more pressure on him
You'd have thought SDs strategy now would be to flog Sunderland to anyone who'd give him enough to cover the major proportion of what he has personally spent. The thing is, even if they went up the pressure on SD would then increase anyway because their supporters see the club as a Prem team - they won't be happy 'surviving' in the Championship.
 
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