- yesterday
Phil Smith brings Sunderland fans up to speed with all the latest news from Portugal
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hi folks, I hope you're doing well. Thank you so much for watching all the videos and following
00:07all the content from Portugal so far. I'm just out for a bit of a lunchtime stroll so I thought
00:11why not bring you with me on a little stroll around Faro and we'll have a little bit of chat
00:16about all the late Sunderland news. Now obviously I'm recording this before tonight's game against
00:22Sporting Lisbon, I'll have full coverage and reaction from that in due course. Not expecting
00:28a huge amount to change in terms of team news. I was at training yesterday, Nick de Triantus was
00:33involved in the session, looked to be moving pretty well so I guess there's a chance he could be
00:37involved tonight but we'll have to wait and see on that one. Anthony Patterson and Chris Rigg
00:41didn't train which I think means it's probably quite unlikely that they'll play tonight but
00:46obviously we'll wait and see on that one. Again you know both have been doing their own kind of
00:52stuff over the week, Rigg's trained fully at times, so has Patterson. So no major issues there, I think
00:56someone had just been really cautious with a couple of little niggles making sure it doesn't
01:00develop into anything more serious. So if we don't see them tonight, I'm sure we'll see them
01:04pretty soon, so no major concern there. Expecting it to be very similar in terms of the way that
01:10Labrice manages it, I think it'll be two teams again over the 45. Probably similar lineups,
01:14Labrice made it pretty clear that he's trying to sort of work on the core of that team now
01:19so I think we'll see two pretty similar teams. It's going to be a really interesting one here
01:23because obviously this is a big step up. Sevilla obviously a big European side with a big reputation
01:29but they haven't had a great time of it of late. Sport and Lisbon are the champions for the last two
01:33years. Now of course they won't have Victor Jokeres tonight because he seems to be pretty close
01:38moving to Arsenal but still going to be a big step up in quality so it's going to be really interesting
01:42to see how some of these new players sort of adapt to that and how they look at that level.
01:46And it's also a big game because this really is the last chance for quite a few of these players to
01:51really impressed for Gise Labrice in terms of the players who were debating how big a role they're
01:55going to have next season. Now obviously Labrice won't make any decisions on one game, he'll be
02:00getting a lot of information from the last couple of weeks of training and all the games that have
02:05been played but he's made it pretty clear that he wants to make early decisions in terms of telling
02:09players who won't have a huge role to play this season that they're not going to be involved and
02:13that they can find a solution whether it be a loan or a permanent move away. So yeah this is quite a big
02:18game and I'm going to be keeping a close eye to see which players can kind of step up and again
02:22underline that feeling that they've actually got a role to play in this Premier League squad next
02:25season. So yeah it's going to be an interesting one to watch. Now yesterday's video I unfortunately
02:32recorded about 15 minutes before I got word that the deal to sign Armand Loriente was off
02:38which was not ideal. Thankfully I didn't talk too much about it in the video so hopefully you still
02:43got some interesting stuff out of that and enjoyed it. Thanks for watching and apologies
02:47for that. Now listen this is a really difficult one to get at the bottom of and certainly one
02:53that I don't have the exact answers of what happened. I wouldn't try and sort of mislead
02:57you on that. All I can give you is the timeline. The timeline of how it all panned out as far
03:03as I'm aware and we can probably draw our own conclusions from that. So Loriente is obviously
03:09a player that Sunderland really liked. Labrice knows him really well from his time in France
03:12before he moved to Sassuolo. Florent Gasolfi obviously knew him really well. The initial
03:19deal was sort of basically done in terms of nothing was finalised or signed but the fee
03:23was agreed. Sunderland and the player sort of had a broad agreement on the contract and
03:29the terms of that and what have you. As you'll have all seen on Twitter Loriente flew out here
03:34for his medical and it looked all set to happen. Now at some point between that medical and
03:42pen being put to paper something pretty dramatic has changed and you know the word from Sunderland
03:47was that they no longer felt they had an agreement. We all, I should say, couldn't finalise the
03:52actual final agreement with all the respective parties involved. I think there's a couple of
03:57things here. One is that this isn't brinkmanship. I don't expect this deal to happen. It's not
04:03you know one where one party sort of yeah playing brinkmanship to try and get a bit more money
04:09or anything like that. It's not haggling over a bit of loose change and this deal is not
04:13happening and I think that tells you that something major has happened. It's been a pretty huge
04:19change. Exactly what that was we don't know but you know I think a huge amount of work goes
04:25into a deal of this level in terms of setting it up. So for it to kind of fall away at the
04:30last minute tells you that there's been a fairly major development and as I say it's
04:34not something that I expect to be rectified so someone will have to move on. It's definitely
04:38not because there's another target that's become available that they've moved on. That's not
04:42what's happened here. I think someone will take a pause now. They'll obviously have other
04:45targets but they'll also be looking at the players already in the squad and working out
04:49their next steps. So it's been a really positive transfer window so far but that's obviously
04:53one big setback and a real shame really because we talked a little bit about kind of the
04:59depth of the squad, the challenge of the African Cup of Nations last year. I think Loriente's
05:03sort of versatility and top tier experience made them look like a really good acquisition.
05:07I think we can assume that for Sunderland to walk away from this deal there's a major issue
05:11whatever that might be and I think to be fair we know that Sunderland is very financially
05:18prudent under this regime and in fact we assume that there's a significant reason why they've
05:22decided not to go ahead with a deal of this magnitude and to walk away from it. So we'll wait and
05:27see. As I say it'll be interesting to see what Sunderland do. Priority generally speaking
05:32still very much defence, the heart of defence. Clear that they'd like to sign another midfielder
05:37if they can because of the links that we've seen and definitely there's some work to sign
05:41a new goalkeeper. I think it's pretty clear that they want to add some major competition
05:45for Anthony Patterson with a top level goalkeeper. So let's wait and see how that happens.
05:49What else is there to bring you up to speed with? Well it was been really nice to chat to a couple
05:53other players while I've been out here. I spoke to Dan Ballard and Eliza Meander which obviously
05:58a real pleasure to speak to those guys and you can see I find the interviews over the Echo
06:02so on the Echo website so go and have a look at them but I think what's really clear from
06:06speaking to those players who were here last season is a huge lift in standards. I think
06:12that the new coaching staff that have come in, guys who've worked at the highest level for
06:19a long period of time and I think in combination with the staff that were already here, I think
06:23there's a real feeling that the standards have gone up and that something to really build
06:26in an elite level training environment and I think that was obvious even just from the
06:31little bits of training I've seen, the pace and the intensity especially in the heat out
06:36here has been really impressive and I think all the players, what's come through loud and
06:40clear who were here last season was they're really excited about the players that have come
06:43in, they're really excited about the challenge ahead but they understand that they've got a real
06:48fight for their players now and that the standards are going up and it's up to them to meet it
06:52and I think what Sunderland's transfer business so far has shown that if they don't meet those
06:56levels, Sunderland will bring new players in and they won't be in the team. It's kind of ruthless
07:00but I think the players understand it and I think in a weird way they're almost quite enthused
07:04by it and sort of understanding how big a gap it is to the Premier League and that the club
07:10have to invest. I think it's created a competitive environment but one where people are quite
07:15excited about the future as well. It's going to be really interesting to see how these
07:18guys go in terms of trying to meet that challenge. Nice beating to Eliza Meander as well, just so
07:25obvious how much warmth he's got for the club because of the journey that he's been on and
07:29the way the fans have taken to him. He spoke about how he feels like the identity of this
07:33team is to fight for the fans and I really like that line and I think it sums up why he's so popularly.
07:39Yes, because he's quick, he's talented and he scores goals but he works so hard, he's so humble as well
07:44and so that was a, that was a real pleasure. And obviously you'll have seen as well, we had a bit of chat about it the other day but I've been speaking to
07:53Regis Labrice as well while I'm out here and it was interesting asking him about the African Cup of Nations. I know that's something that's been a big talking point. I think fans are really excited and enthused by
08:02Sunderland's transfer business but a little bit worried about the number of players going to the African Cup of Nations and a couple of things that Labrice said really to this was, one was that look, you can never have the absolute ideal transfer wind
08:14window, you can never get everything you want. We've signed really good players that we're really happy with who we think are going to make us really competitive. The downside is yes, a few of them are going to be away for a few weeks potentially. He did also make the point that you don't know how long these players are going to be away for. Some of them could only be away for a week or so, so not to get too sort of caught up in that. And he also made clear that look, we're not done, we're still going to sign some more players and he feels really confident that by the end of the window, yes, the African Cup of Nations is going to be a challenge but there'll be enough depth in those positions where players are going to be a challenge.
08:44going to be able to manage it, however long that is, so yeah, hopefully you can take some reassurance from that. There's still a lot of here we go's to come, I think. It's pretty warm, I'm getting quite tired now actually, so I think I'm going to call it there. As I say, full coverage of the game later. I'll have loads of video content as well before we're done, so just keep checking the channel and as ever, thanks so much for watching, see you soon.
Recommended
1:42
|
Up next
0:53
0:46
6:38
10:00
9:04