Malcolm Dawson writes……..in the briefest of statements the club has announced that it has reached an agreement with Papy Djilobodji that will finally bring an end to his employment at SAFC and bring closure to a saga which seems to epitomise the way the club had been badly run and the contrast in policy and attitudes that this current regime has brought to Sunderland AFC.
The statement in full reads: “Sunderland AFC has reached an agreement with Papy Djilobodji for his departure, his employment having terminated on 21 September 2018.” I would suspect the terms of the agreement precludes the club saying much more at this time, but a costly court case has been avoided and hopefully the matter has been resolved to the benefit of the club rather than the player.
Stewart Donald has been a little more forthcoming on his Twitter account saying:
Today has been my favourite day as @SunderlandAFC custodian, excluding match days of course ?? ??.
— stewart donald (@stewartdonald3) November 7, 2018
which would seem to suggest he is happy with what has been decided.
A Senagalese international who Chelsea signed from FC Nantes, you would have thought the fact that despite being on a 4 year contract, he made one solitary appearance for the club in a League Cup tie before being loaned out to Werder Bremen, might have rung alarm bells at Sunderland who paid around £8 million for him in August 2016. He made a total of 22 appearances for us and was consistently underwhelming before being loaned out to Dijon.
I won’t go over the events of the summer – we must all be sick of hearing about them by now but I assume that
a) the club retains his registration so that he can’t sign for anyone else until January
b) he has lost his work permit so that he is no longer able to be resident in the UK
c) the club will receive some compensation if and when he signs for someone else.
Unfortunately his departure (and Ndong’s) does not free up the wage bill as when the club presented their plans to the Football League it was assumed that those two players would not be being paid.
However, they are gone and apart from Lamine Kone, who is still officially a Sunderland player, we no longer have highly paid mercenaries who aren’t committed.
When he came to the club I offered him the traditional Salut! Sunderland welcome and if you want to see how embarrassing that welcome seems now, you can read it here but in my defence I did include the following:
” One of M Salut’s acquaintances, who happens to support Chelski, rather cruelly described him as “think Gareth Hall but without the talent”.
Anyway he’s gone now. Onward and upwards.
Ha’way the Lads
I’ve thought the same. Moyes and other managers have been slated by supporters for poor signings but I have often wondered just how much say they had and how much they were told “this is who you’ve got – get on with it”.
When Di Fanti and Congerton were on the staff I’d have thought it was them who had a major role in identifying who was available. I would think Moyes probably had a say in all the ex Everton and Man Utd players brought in but I’m not sure he could have known much about those two. Our recruitment policy was disastrous on the whole, except for that brief window when Allardyce brought in the three Ks and Steve Harper, allowing Pantillimon to leave and free up salary to bring in Kone.
Think, Coates, Vergini, Alvarez, Dossena etc. and from the other side Alonso, M’Vila and Yedlin who we didn’t sign after successful loan spells.
Jack Ross I believe had a say in the signings of two or three players (and perhaps the final say on all of them) but Tony Coton was put in charge of player recruitment and given a brief as to the type of player brought in.
The financial situation and the league we are in, together with pragmatic owners has see a huge change in recruitment policy.
Who was “Think”? – don’t remember him!
I wonder what David Moyes thinks about this? I think both Papy and N’dong were signed during his [ thankfully brief ] reign?
Did he sanction their signing? – and if so, had he seen them play?
I mention this because, prior to joining Sunderland, he had a very good record in shrewd and effective transfer dealings.
If he had any involvement in signing these two, he must surely be extremely embarrassed ? – I know I would be.
(this will probably be censored by PC M. Salut) When we saw him play for us for the first time his name got mispronounced as dodgy billy – it stuck!
The more you think about the Djilobodji deal, the more incredulous it becomes (if that’s possible) at how badly run SAFC were under the previous regime.
I hope someone from that era will eventually explain SAFC’s thinking behind paying £8 million for a totally unproven defender. Even getting him on a free would have been risky.
Baffling
Reading this again it seems as if I am referring to Kone as a mercenary when in fact, unlike the other two he did come into training at the start of the season, but he also reportedly stated he didn’t want to play for us.
The most likely departure which would have a significant impact on the wage bill would be Oviedo. With James and Hume both performing well in his position if another club is prepared to meet his salary we could lose him with minimal impact on our chances of gaining promotion.