Sunderland have been reworked for the reason that arrival of Tony Mowbray, because the Englishman stamped a transparent mark of development in his first time period as supervisor.
The previous Blackburn supervisor took the squad he inherited and of their first season again within the Championship, led them into the play-offs.
Whereas a defeat to Luton City within the semi-finals would derail any desires of recording back-to-back promotions, the Black Cats are purring as soon as extra, comfortably sitting within the high six after 9 matches performed.
It isn’t at all times been plain crusing for the North East facet, consecutive relegations noticed them drop to the third tier in 2018, spending 4 depressing campaigns within the doldrums of League One.
In the course of the interval through which Sunderland dropped like a stone, reckless decision-making within the switch window was the important thing issue to their downfall, particularly in the summertime of 2016 as poor recruitment by David Moyes was decisive of their relegation.
The Scot brought in the likes of Papy Djilobodji, Darron Gibson, Steven Pienaar and Paddy McNair, however by far the worst of the lot was the acquisition of record-signing Didier Ndong.
How a lot did Didier Ndong price Sunderland?
Throughout his 12 months stint at Lorient, Didier Ndong rose to prominence as some of the sought-after midfielders within the league, that includes in all however 4 of his facet’s 38 matches in Ligue 1.
Following his membership file £13.6m arrival, the Gabon worldwide said: “Possibly the Sunderland followers do not know me but, however I promise they’ll shortly uncover that I’ll give the whole lot for them and the membership”, which could not be farther from actuality.
As per Capology, Sunderland paid Ndong £30k-per-week to maintain him on the membership, amounting to a complete of £1.5m in wages for the 12 months he was on the payroll on the Stadium of Mild.
What’s extra alarming is if you take a look at how the wage expenditure was unfold throughout your complete squad. There have been 13 different gamers incomes greater than the Gabonese within the 2016/17 season, together with Jermaine Defoe on £80k per week, Fabio Borini on £60k, Lee Cattermole on £50k and John O’Shea on £47k.
|
Sunderland’s high earners: 2016/17 season |
|
|---|---|
|
Participant |
Weekly wage |
|
Jermain Defoe |
£80k-per-week |
|
Fabio Borini |
£60k-per-week |
|
Adnan Januzaj |
£60k-per-week |
|
Patrick van Aanholt |
£55k-per-week |
|
Lee Cattermole |
£50k-per-week |
Sunderland would undergo a damning relegation to the second tier with a squad of underperforming excessive earners, and Ndong was considered one of a number of who upset having crumbled beneath the load of his hefty price ticket.
What number of video games did Didier Ndong play for Sunderland?
Having fended off a complete host of golf equipment throughout the continent to land the up-and-coming star, Sunderland anticipated him to be the combative and energetic midfielder able to dragging them to security, however that was a seemingly unattainable process.
The Black Cats ended up spending all however two weeks of the season within the Premier League’s relegation zone, ending the marketing campaign in final place and though Ndong made 31 appearances in that time period, to say he underwhelmed can be an understatement.
Reflecting on his time in England in 2019, the 29-year-old summed up it up completely, stating “I lacked professionalism”, and that was a real indictment of his performances as he failed to assist Sunderland of their quest to bounce straight again to the massive time.
Anticipated to be ranges forward of his positional friends at Championship degree, Ndong hardly ever confirmed any glimpse of repaying the cash that was shelled out on him as he made 18 appearances within the first half of the marketing campaign earlier than engineering a loan move to Watford.
If Sunderland supporters hadn’t already been put by way of the mill sufficient, particularly after a gut-wrenching relegation to League One in 2018, Ndong discovered a strategy to rile up the fanbase even additional.
He failed to show as much as coaching in July of that 12 months, posted footage on social media of him on an expensive journey to Morocco and was subsequently sacked by the club after breaching his contract by going lacking within the months that adopted.
Ndong ultimately agreed to pay again £3.5m in compensation as soon as he discovered a brand new membership, which proved to be Guingamp with the 5 foot 10 dud taking place as FourFourTwo’s worst-record signing in Premier League historical past.
