transfer deadline

No Graham or Buckley alongside David De Gea, Odemwingie, Robinho in transfer deadline shockers

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Jake: 'in time, Jan ...'
Jake: ‘in time, Jan …’

With Jan Kirchhoff (Bayern Munich), Dame N’Doye (Trabzonspor), Lamine Kone (Lorient) and the “unattached” Steve Harper in, Wabi Kahzri‘s concluded deal from Bordeaux awaited and the exit door shown to Liam Bridcutt (Leeds United), Will Buckley (Birmingham City), Charis Mavrias (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Danny Graham (Blackburn Rovers) and Sebastian Coates (Sporting Lisbon) all loans – plus Costel Pantilimon off permanently (Watford) Big Sam has been busy.

Sadly, none off those ushered out will be greatly missed – all tried and all, with the exception of Pants frequently and Coates sometimes, failed – and we have yet to see whether the squad available to Allardyce when the deadline arrives at 11pm GMT on Monday will be good enough to keep us up.

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Soapbox: Crouch, Wenger and other transfer deadline duds

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It’s all over until January and, says Pete Sixsmith, thanks heavens for that. But first he takes a measured look at the idiocies, bargains and eyebrow-raising gambles of transfer deadline day …

See also: Velkommen to Sunderland, Nicklas Bendtner – whatever Abbey Clancy thinks of it

So, the Belarus programme seller decided to forego St Mirren and remain at Dinamo Minsk, the Costa Rican being pursued by Alan Pardew opted for Thameside rather than Tyneside and Peter Crouch overtook Jan Koller as the player most-linked-with but never–signed-by Sunderland.

Instead, we got the usual SSN hysteria package, which apparently included genial grey haired Scots anchor (feel free to insert w in front) Jim White arriving at Sky Sports studios to host the last segment of their exhaustive and exhausting coverage.

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Velkommen to Sunderland, Nicklas Bendtner, whatever Abbey Clancy thinks of it

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Nicklas BendtnerImage: Wonker

While idly surfing for a way of extending velkommen to the Danish equivalent of “welcome to the madhouse”, I came across a comment that “Swedish is a language, Danish a throat infection”. it didn’t help much, but at least it made me chuckle.

Nicklas Bendtner, brought in on loan from Arsenal for a year, is a confident young man and if he has, in the eyes of some, an excess of that confidence, we have no need to worry about his mental state (or, so far as can be told, his throat).

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Soapbox: Crouch, Cissé, Roy of the Rovers triple swoop. Or not

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Image of Georgios Samaras: Sashymashy

Not forgetting Georgios Samaras from Celtic. Transfer deadline? Dead loss. That’s the verdict from Pete Sixsmith‘s Soapbox and who can blame him? Consider the other names in our own hat: Peter Crouch (£10m bid today, says Sky), Roman Pavlyuchenko, Patrick Helmes, David Craig Bellamy, Nicklas Bendtner, the other Cisse, Toy of th Rovers, Tupper of the Track (er, that’s enough – ed). Salut! Sunderland has remained aloof of the manic speculation; it’s either mostly nonsense cooked up by greedy, manipulative agents, hypocritical clubs, restless players and imaginative football hacks – or evidence of Steve Bruce putting out a search party for anyone who has ever played up front …

Time for the annual frenzy known as “the closing of the transfer window”.

Sky Sports News and its presenters should spontaneously combust somewhere around 8pm as news of St Mirren signing a Belarus programme seller tips them over the edge.

It was all hyper enough yesterday with the earth shattering news (if you work for SSN) that Owen Hargreaves is having a medical at Manchester City. Presumably, they (City) will be offering deals to Paul Scholes, Bobby Charlton and Sir Matt Busby before 11pm tonight.

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SAFC sees the light

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In which we praise the efforts of Sunderland AFC, through its official website, edited by Stu Vose, to engage with fans in a non-official way …

It is a sad fact of life that professional football clubs treat fans, or rather those fans with little platforms (eg, in Sunderland’s case, from ALS to Salut! Sunderland) with a mixture of suspicion and disdain.

SAFC are no worse than the rest, perhaps in some ways better.

In our own experience, Celtic (and Martin O’Neill, then manager) simply didn’t have the courtesy to reply to written requests for a quick interview for 5573 (now Wear Down South), the magazine of the London and SE branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association. When SuperKev was at Birmingham City, the club pompously made it clear that under no circumstances would players be permitted to speak to a jumped-up fanzine, even to the extent of answering a short list of questions.

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Asamoah Gyan: a cautious welcome

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Transfer deadline day and the excitement mounts. Unless things go horribly wrong – medical, gazumping etc – Asamoah Gyan should be a Sunderland player by tonight. The French daily Ouest-France, having got it wrong yesterday (saying Gyan was staying) now quotes the Rennes manager Frédéric Antonetti as confirming, after today’s training session, his departure in our direction. Let’s hope the goalscoring celebration dance in this clip will be repeated many times in our colours. Are other deals, in or out of the Stadium of Light, in the offing too?…

Of course we could just wait until 6pm, by which time there has to be a decision and therefore, presumably, an announcement.

But it wouldn’t be as much fun.

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