If, like me, you’re drawn to the headline “Gyan admits: I left Sunderland for the cash!”, you’ll be dusting down the fitting, if innumerate, chant “There’s only one greedy b******”.

Then you’ll scour the article, at Ghanaweb.com, for the killer quote. “I did it for money.” “I left to make myself richer.” “Stuff Sunderland; gimme more money and I’m anyone’s.”

(more…)

The long break between games made it a quietish week, but there is still plenty to look back on if you missed a daily dose of Salut! Sunderland …

It was good to have an upbeat Bruce’s Banter, the e-mail Steve Bruce sends out after each game. Click here to see what he had to say about the 4-0 win against Stoke City. He mentioned some big individual performances but stopped short of naming names.

(more…)

In his latest guest posting, Eric Sweeney reflects on the depressing saga of Asamoah Gyan’s loan transfer and concludes that Sunderland may be better off avoiding overseas prima donnas who see us as a mixture of cash cow and stepping stone. It is probably stretching things to suggest greed is confined to foreign players. But Eric knows his mind and there was neither a “not” nor a question mark in the headline when it left his keyboard …

Ghana for a short time had become Sunderland’s second home in Africa.

John Mensah, the Rock of Gibraltar, came to the club and was arguably our best player: big, strong and composed but also, unfortunately, injury prone.

There was no way the club could sign him permanently despite his great performances and popularity in the dressing room. The fee was simply too high and the risk too large.

(more…)

We’ve all seen Cashamoah €yan’s protestations that his move from the English Premier League to the United Arab Emirates was not about money. Come up with the best non-financial explanation, buy something from the Salut! Sunderland shop – even it’s only a £2 pen! – and we will dip into the merchandise to add some suitable prize. Was the lure Al Ain Zoo (I’ve been there; not bad) or maybe the spectacular views from the summit of Jebel Hafeet (ditto)? A footballing reason we’ve all missed? Editor’s decision final blah, blah. Meanwhile, some good news on the prices front …

Visit the Salut! Sunderland shop by clicking anywhere along this line

Just wait until Sunderland actually win a game, I thought. That’ll be the moment to exploit the feel-good factor and sneakily put up the prices of Salut! Sunderland‘s merchandise.

Instead the prices are coming down.

(more…)

Niall Quinn speaks out on the Asamoah Gyan debacle …

Once and for all, let Salut! Sunderland remind SAFC, and the chairman most of us hold in such esteem, that when misleading information and speculation are presented by the media, from newspapers to TV and online sources, interested parties and even supporters, the clubs often have themselves to blame.

Football clubs, in common with politicians, public agencies and business generally, like to control the release of information as best they can. If this means a little manipulation over timing, or a degree of economy with the truth, you can bet your bottom dollar that is how it will be.

But as shown yet again, this time by the Asamaoh Gyan saga – which the dumbest boy in class could have predicted would cause more than the odd ripple – those who mould the truth to their own, often respectable agenda are eventually stung into making more open public statements than they ever intended.

It is a function of the age; nothing the most secretive entity chooses to do about it can stop, for long, the flow of unwelcome information – and, yes, disinformation and misinformation.

(more…)

Gary Al-Smith is a respected commentator on African football.

At supersport.com, he has given a detailed and quite depressing account of the events leading to yesterday’s bombshell announcement that a player signed as a world-class striker for £13m little more than a year ago was on his way to play his football in the fabulously rich but, in terms of football quality, lowly environment of the UAE.

(more…)

Just as clever, knowing Sunderland supporters were saying it couldn’t possibly be true, no less reliable source than the official SAFC site confirmed this startling rumour as being fact:

Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan is set to join United Arab Emirates side Al-Ain on loan.

(more…)

Want to know what is wrong with football?

Read these comments from Fabien Pivateau , the agent of Asamoah Gyan, who a year ago signed a three-year contract, on what we can imagine to be fabulous wages, with Sunderland AFC.

(more…)

Maybe one day, we shall be offering Alan Nixon of the Daily Mirror the same sort of “full, free, and absolute pardon” for Gyangate that his part namesake, Richard Milhous Nixon, received 37 years ago over Watergate.

For now, however, he must remain liable to impeachment.

Hot on the heels of his much-denied exclusive from yesterday, claiming an agent close to Sunderland AFC had circulated Asamoah Gyan’s name to other clubs as a player available for transfer, Alan N tells us Stoke City are – stand by for some hardcore footballspeak – “lining up a £10m raid … to test Sunderland’s resolve to keep Gyan”.

(more…)

Well done Niall Quinn.

Just as comments here recommended, he has seen the Gyan-for-sale reports as one rumour too far, issuing this statement:

“I’m sorry that our fans have to read the endless speculation that appears in the press at this time of year. Normally we don’t comment on any of it as there’s so much – for instance we’ve been linked to over 40 players in the last month or so alone.

However, the suggestion that we have spoken to an agent to sell this player on our behalf is embarrassing to all concerned. I hope our fans would be smart enough to realise that this is probably some other club or outside agents’ way of attempting to destabilise our relationship with one of our players.”

Maybe as his next step, he should order a halt to the practice of safc.com of having it both ways by pubishing the rumour mill he so despises – oops – throughout the close season. I’m told they also tweet away at each rumour involving our club, which seems unbelievably at odds with the official outlook.

And Niall’s declaration closely followed one made to me by at Twitter by Ian Abrahams – Moose at TalkSport – who responded to my question to him on the veracity or otherwise of the report. “Absolute rubbish” was his reply and Niall gets as close as he can to echoing the thought.