2 Sunderland Players Who Could Leave If The Club Are Relegated
Despite the rather surprising appointment of former Wales boss Chris Coleman as the club’s new manager, Sunderland are set to continue to struggle with what is a squad full of big names, but one also full of players going backwards.
Coleman, 47, is a decent motivator but his managerial career in the past has shown that, much like many a manager in the Premier League who has had fleeting success, he needs a top class player or two to drag his sides kicking and screaming to wins.
Certainly, with the Wales set up, a lot was owed to the work the tragic Gary Speed had put in before Coleman signed. Without Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey in the side, Wales could not have achieved half of what they have over the length of Coleman’s reign.
Relegation to League One then remains a distinct possibility and if it happens, certain players cannot hang around. Here are two of them:
Lamine Kone
I would have listed Didier N’Dong here, but that is surely too obvious? At 23 and still rated at around £9m it may well be that should be away and gone by the end of January to ensure his career does not stall here.
Kone may stay for the time being, but at 28-years-old and still of a reasonable ability, he cannot risk playing in the third tier of English football and would surely seek a move immediately.
The defender has been the subject of criticism from fans and even from fellow players (we remember the Darron Gibson video), but he does possess some talent and ideally needs to be playing elsewhere.
Paddy McNair
Alright, footballers are usually not the sharpest tools and they say silly things in the press. But Paddy McNair’s chickens are somewhat coming home to roost after he claimed he was joining Sunderland rather than Newcastle because “they were the bigger club”.
That utter nonsense was met not with anger on Tyneside, but with laughter, at a player, the fans would never have wanted in the first place.
With all that said though, McNair will feel he is better than this and so he will definitely feel he is way better than League One and even though the Northern Ireland international may feel a debt to the club after recovering from a long-term injury, his duty will be fulfilled should he do his utmost to try and keep this club in the Championship.
McNair will most certainly be around from February onward, but if the club gets relegated, you’d have to forgive him for looking to move elsewhere.