Silly season

We're in the off season and fast approaching the opening of the transfer window. With the season seemingly starting earlier every year (8th August is the first round of Premier League fixtures this time) and ore-season tours to all parts of the globe, my view is that teams should get their business done early.

It's surprising to me how long it takes to pull a transfer together. If you take the point in time that a rumour first surfaces as the starting point, then we often see the process take over a month to come to fruition. Take my own club Sunderland and their reported pursuit if Carl Jenkinson. Reports linking us to a right back have gone in every Summer and January for years. This time, the interest in Jenkinson started about 3 weeks ago, according to reports. A loan fee of £1.5million has been widely reported, as has interest from West Ham and Southampton. Now the Saints bought a new right back yesterday so may nick longer be after Jenkinson. From my understanding of business, the situation from the outside looks like the player has a choice of clubs, probably dependent on speaking to the managers and then a medical and a deal can be done. But these things tend to drag out for weeks.

Deadline day seems to be the only thing that concentrates the minds of all the respective parties to get the deal done.

The rumours this season, as always, rest around the players from clubs just outside of the top teams who had a great season last year. Nathaniel Clyne is highly sought after, and Southampton's new right back sends hints that he's about to leave. Liverpool are reported to be front of the queue, but Manchester United could do with a quality right back.

The Danny Ings saga has finished with Liverpool beating off reported competition from Real Sociedad, Bayern Munich and a host of English clubs.

Charlie Austin is another English goalscorer who will be in demand all over the Premier League. Newcastle and West Ham needs goals and would ha e the resources for the transfer fee and his wages.

We shall see.

Champions League Final tonight

It's the Champions League Final tonight and I think that football needs a real boost after the recent (and ongoing) FIFA scandals. I'd love to think that the two teams could think about the image of the game but with the likes of Luis Suarez on the pitch I'm not so sure…

It's not the final I would have chosen at the start of the season but by beating Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the semi-finals, these teams have really earned their place in this final.

Juventus do play in a traditionally Italian way, and have great defensive qualities. They attack sporadically in the Champions League but have real quality when they do. Carlos Tevez seems timeless, Arturo Vidal has great drive and Paul Pogba is being courted by the biggest clubs in the game.

I'd love to see a Juve win as I want to see variety, but I can't see past this Barcelona team as the champions.

The grief that Barcelona have gone to bringing in Neymar and Suarez has paid off. The front three are frighteningly good (with Neymar being clearly the weaker of the three) and attack with real pace, especially at the breakdown. It's what Pep Guardiola calls the transition and being able to attack the opposition before they have set up their formation makes a huge difference to your ability to score goals. As a former central defender I think that modern standards of defending are a long way down from my youth across the game and even with the big teams - particularly in Spain. But with an attack like this, Barcelona don't need to worry about their defence as much.

I think it will be one-sided and I also think that Barça will go all out for an early goal to force Juventus in to the front foot. This will be Juve's downfall.

Big Dick Advocaat is back - where does it leave us?

The slightly surprising news yesterday that Dick Advocaat has returned as Sunderland manager caught the bookies on the hop and has earned Mrs Advocaat a nice bunch of flowers, by all accounts. It's nice to have a quality manager that knows his football, has the backing of the players, understands the club (already) and has a great rapport with the fans. But it doesn't answer the questions around the playing staff of the club. We still need an overhaul, but the stories that went with Advocaat's departure (of him telling Ellis Short that we needed to buy quality rather than quantity) and the stories that went with his return (of him being promised £50m for players) are promising signs.

Personally, I hope that the gap between him leaving and re-signing was because of negotiations over the transfer policy rather than misgivings from his wife. I suppose we'll never know.

I've already looked at what I think should be potential transfer targets in a previous blog-

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The exception to the players I had identified would probably be Keiran Trippier. I stated that I thought he should be looked at as a new right-back based in the link to Sean Dyche, who was the favourite to take over as manager at the time. Rumours have linked us with Sam Byram from Leeds as a potential new right-back and, although I haven't seen him play, he is highly regarded.

There should now be a renewed feeling of optimism at the Stadium of Light and with the right signings (over to you, Lee Congerton) we can look forward to moving away from a relegation battle next season - but I think that at the same time every year.

The fact that Advocaat has signed a one-year deal means that we have to start work on his replacement straight away. Bringing in a Kevin Phillips now as his number 2, or promoting Paul Bracewell at the end of the season are better options than going into this blindly and looking for a new manager next June rather than this. I hope that the club sees sense in this and takes steps right now to ensure continuity at the end of the upcoming season.