Season Preview 2023 – Part 6

SUNDERLAND

INS: Nectarios Triantis (Central Coast Mariners, £300,000), Jobe Bellingham (Birmingham City, Undisclosed), Nathan Bishop (Manchester United, Undisclosed), Eliezer Mayenda (Sochaux, Undisclosed), Luís “Hemir” Semedo (Benfica, Undisclosed), Bradley Dack (Blackburn Rovers, Free), Jenson Seelt (PSV Eindhoven, Free)

OUTS: Carl Winchester(Shrewsbury Town, Free), Jacob Carney, Joe Anderson (Shrewsbury Town, Season Loan), Alex Bass (AFC Wimbledon, Season Loan)

OUR EX-BLACK CATS: Dean Whitehead (Assistant Head Coach)

THEIR EX-ORNS: Luke O’Nien

Season	H	A	FAC	LC	OTH
2022-23	2-2	2-2
2016-17	1-0
2015-16	2-2
2004-05	1-1	2-4
2003-04	2-2	0-2
2002-03			1-0
1999-00	2-3	0-2
1998-99	2-1	1-4
1996-97				0-2/0-1
1995-96	3-3
1982-83	8-0

POSSIBLE STARTING ELEVEN:

Patterson
Hume             Batth            Ballard         Cirkin
Neil                   Ekwah
Roberts          Dack             Clarke
Stewart

BLUFFER’S GUIDE: There’s no doubt that Sunderland are a side on the up.  Tony Mowbray always felt like a good manager having a bad day, someone you rated but weren’t quite sure why.  Here he’s found a niche with an exciting team full of bright young players that bounced into the final play off place that’s traditionally given away with a packet of Cornflakes to one of a number of similarly kind-of-ok-mostly teams in the middle of the division. A year earlier the Black Cats, then under Alex Neil, had successfully navigated the same obstacle in earning promotion from the third tier.

They have every reason to look forward to the season positively; the side is enormous fun to watch, there was something of the harlem globetrotters in the bunch of kids that came off the bench to take a late point at Vicarage Road in September and no small verve in the second draw between the two sides in April.  Much will depend, however, on how the side deals with adversity after two positive years.  Danny Batth is an exception, but there are few wise old heads in a very young team that has been augmented with further bright young stars over the summer.  Meanwhile the mercurial Amad Diallo has returned to Manchester United (with hopeful talk of a second loan quashed by a bad injury in pre-season), while main striker Ross Stewart is in the Sarr position of having one year left on his contract with vultures circling. Stewart only managed 11 starts last season due to injury, but 10 goals in those games continued his prolific record from the previous campaign and he’d be tough to replace.

Meanwhile for all their fun and verve Sunderland have a few players with bad injury records, and are vulnerable to the counter-attack.  It really could go either way here, a wide margin on any prediction from a place in the sun if things go well to bottom half if the challenges above cause problems and the squad isn’t mentally resilient enough to cope with early setbacks.  Too much quality to struggle, but anything else is possible.

SWANSEA CITY

INS: Mykola Kukharevych (Troyes, Undisclosed), Jerry Yates (Blackpool, Undisclosed), Josh Key (Exeter City, Compensation), Josh Ginnelly (Hearts, Free), Carl Rushworth (Brighton & Hove Albion, Season Loan)

OUTS: Morgan Whittaker (Plymouth Argyle, £1,000,000), Kyle Joseph (Blackpool, Undisclosed), Michael Obafemi (Burnley, Undisclosed), Joel Latibeaudiere (Coventry City, Compensation), Ryan Manning (Southampton, Free), Andreas Sondergaard

OUR EX-SWANS: Ben Hamer

THEIR EX-ORNS: None

REPORT ARCHIVE:

Season	H	A	FAC	LC	OTH
2020-21	2-0	1-2
2017-18	1-2
2016-17	1-0	0-0
2015-16	1-0
2010-11	2-3
2009-10	0-1
2008-09	2-0

POSSIBLE STARTING ELEVEN:

Rushworth
    Cabango         Wood              Darling
Rushesha/Naughton              Grimes         Allen                 Ogbeta
Piroe           Ntcham
Yates

BLUFFER’S GUIDE: So.  “I’m a Celebrity…”.  Whether or not you’re into that sort of thing.

A freak show of a couple of weeks or so in a predictable, formulaic structure involving humiliation and silliness, given a modicum of energy and humour by its hosts.  For the contests that survive long enough (and presuming your interest does the same, not to be taken for granted) one of the closing events is the “Cyclone Challenge”, a glorified obstacle course featuring fast flowing rapids, water jets, wind and bouncing projectiles.  Not entirely dissimilar to the situation that many Championship clubs – and Swansea specifically, since we’re here – find themselves in once the parachute payments dry up.  Clawed progress is possible, yes, but only in the face of an onslaught of missiles and hurdles, any one which of could knock you off your feet and propel you gracelessly back to where you started.

These challenges include the loss of key players and staff to more monied competitors.  The world was ever thus;  the Swans have lost manager Russell Martin, regarded with no little acrimony on messageboards to Southampton along with out-of-contract Ryan Manning with Matt Grimes’ name, heavily linked with ourselves a couple of years ago, also mentioned in dispatches.  Parachute payments are, on balance, a Good Thing I think, providing some kind of sane safe space between gambling a club’s future and not bothering to even try on promotion, but the playing field is unavoidably uneven.  Joël Piroe is another gem expected to be picked off by someone before the end of August.

The thing about the Cyclone Challenge is that, for all the frenzied hysterics that accompany it it’s surely more fun to be a part of than to watch from a distance. Similarly, Swansea fall squarely into the “on their day” box;  good enough to beat anyone, certainly unlikely to struggle, probably not realistic challengers… but not so far away that they can’t kid themselves they’ve got a chance throughout a season in which their fortunes are likely to be of less interest and given less credence by those not invested.  A shout of the play-offs with a prevailing wind – Michael Duff certainly looks like a sound appointment until someone else poaches him too – but no more than that.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION

INS: Josh Maja (Bordeaux, Free), Jeremy Sarmiento (Brighton & Hove Albion, Season Loan)

OUTS: Jay O’Shea (Burnley, £7,000,000), Jake Livermore (Watford, Free), Kean Bryan, Tom Rogic, Karlan Grant (Cardiff City, Season Loan), Marc Albrighton (Leicester City, End of Loan)

OUR EX-BAGGIES: Valérien Ismaël, Jake Livermore

THEIR EX-ORNS: None

REPORT ARCHIVE:

Season	H	A	FAC	LC	OTH
2022-23	3-2
2021-22					0-0
2017-18	1-0	2-2
2016-17	2-0	1-3
2015-16		1-0
2009-10	1-1
2007-08	0-3	1-1
2003-04	0-1	1-3
2002-03			1-0
2001-02	1-2	1-1
2000-01	3-3	0-3
1998-99	0-2	1-4
1995-96		4-4

POSSIBLE STARTING ELEVEN:

Palmer
Furlong            Ajayi           Pieters       Townsend
Yokuşlu        Molumby
Wallace        Swift       Diangana
Maja

BLUFFER’S GUIDE: I watched the game at the Hawthorns last year in a bar in Samos.

It was an odd experience.  I was at the mercy of the barholder, whose tentative indulgence in screening what was after all a second tier encounter didn’t stretch to volume.  The match took place to the soundtrack of a Greek holiday seafront;  you had to concentrate, since neither commentary nor the sound of the crowd were available to focus your attention on approaching moments of drama.  Wherever my head was as we took the lead, it needed the “f******************ing hell” from an adjacent table to alert me to Sarr’s ridiculous strike.

Albion dominated the rest of the game for the most part, equalising through Grant on half time.  Factor in their share of the play and the penalty we spurned and both sides ended the evening feeling listless and underwhelmed in a portent for the rest of our respective seasons.

Albion are a year further away from their last Premier League experience than us in this their third Championship season on the hop and fifth in six.  They retain quality in their starting eleven, but are hamstrung by a frugal owner whose contributions since taking charge have included overseeing a loan from Albion to prop up his ailing businesses during pandemic.  The side looks solid as it stands, but desperately short of goals with Daryl Dike infrequently available and not living up to the promise of his season under Valérien Ismaël at Barnsley when he does make it onto the pitch.  The squad is also shallow beneath the first team, with injuries pre-season already exposing the lack of experienced cover.  Kids will get runs as it stands, with the wage bill reportedly needing to drop further;  Nathaniel Chalobah, ever further away from the glittering career suggested by his loan spell a decade ago, seemed set to contribute to the reduction in the wage bill before an odd-looking move to Israel fell through.

West Brom are unlikely to challenge for promotion this season.  It would take a lot for them to struggle, but bad luck with injuries wouldn’t leave them with very much to fall back on.

WATFORD

INS: Tom Ince (Reading, Undisclosed), Rhys Healey (Toulouse, Free), Jake Livermore (West Bromwich Albion, Free), Giorgi Chakvetadze (Gent, Season Loan), Jamal Lewis (Newcastle United, Season Loan), Matheus Martins (Udinese, Season Loan)

OUTS: João Pedro (Brighton & Hove Albion, £30 million), Joseph Hungbo (1.F.C.Nürnberg, Undisclosed), Christian Kabasele (Udinese, Undisclosed), Domingos Quina (Udinese, Undisclosed), Ismaïla Sarr (Marseille, Undisclosed), William Troost-Ekong (PAOK, Undisclosed), Juergen Elitim (Legia Warsaw, Free), Mario Gaspar (Elche, Free), JJ McKiernan (Morecambe, Free), Adian Manning (Norwich City, Free), Britt Assombalonga, Leandro Bacuna, Craig Cathcart, Dan Gosling, Ober Almanza (Orsomarso, Six Month Loan), João Ferreira (Udinese, Season Loan), Ashley Fletcher (Sheffield Wednesday, Season Loan), Tom Cleverley (retired), Hamza Choudhury (Leicester City, End of Loan), Keinan Davis (Aston Villa, End of Loan), Hassane Kamara (Udinese, End of Loan)

POSSIBLE STARTING ELEVEN:

Bachmann
Andrews             Porteous               Hoedt                     Lewis
Louza              SIerralta               Koné
Asprilla              Bayo           Chakvetadze

VERDICT: As has been discussed before on these pages, an important component of being a Watford fan for me is the tribalism.  Or…  at least the introspective aspect of that.  Being part of a tribe, not so much conflict with other tribes.  The suggestion that we’re all on the same side, we’re pulling together.  I get very uncomfortable with internal conflict, which perversely tends to provoke a counterproductive knee-jerk instinct in response.

All of which is a long-winded way of building up to the fact that the mercifully rare seasons like the last one where we’re in a position to significantly underperform versus expectations are the most miserable, given the inevitable frustration that they provoke.  There is little less satisfying (or unifying) as the fan of any club, surely, than a bunch of decent players that don’t form a decent team.  Instead, a team that’s less than the sum of parts.

This, at least, should be a less of an issue this season. You take a club with good players but no team and sell off the two most talented players…  you’d better hope that the new man at the helm is able to form what’s left into something more resembling a functioning unit.   To this end, Ismaël has been abetted by the mother of all clear-outs leaving us with a much leaner looking squad of whom only new captain Dan Bachmann (fine by me), Ken Sema and, technically, Tom Dele-Bashiru were in the first team picture for relegation in 2020.  Early signs are reasonably positive – the Palace performance was certainly punchy, though as an aside it’s a shame that the traditional “Graham Taylor matchday” friendly to open the season disappeared.  It may have been deemed inferior preparation to intense training and we all want the team to be successful but a balance needs to be struck.  Football is entertainment first and foremost.

On the incomings…  Tom Ince looks an utterly sensible, opportunistic recruit, no problems with that, but it was also a signing to reset expectations early in the window.  As Championship a recruit as one could hope for without appointing Neil Warnock as manager…  “here we are, then. When in Rome…”.  Presumably those voices bemoaning the esoteric output of our scouting network in favour of How It Used To Be were delighted.

With a number 9 shaped hole in the sqad list an obvious deficiency there are nonetheless other vulnerabilities on the face of it.  We seem to be banking on either a slightly oddly positioned Francisco Sierralta or Jake Livermore at the back of the midfield, the latter of whom will certainly add value via his leadership and experience in a squad short on both but was not signed for his mobility.  We rather need our first choice centre-backs to stay fit, particularly if one of them needs to pretend to be a midfielder and we will again rely heavily on the magic in Imrân Louza’s boots.

But despite all that I can see this being a whole lot more fun than what went before.  Ismaël’s Barnsley side was fabulous, if he can inject some of that into Vicarage Road we’ll be starting on the front foot.  Sarr and Pedro may have gone, inevitably and rightly, but we still have a bunch of players who are capable of far more than what we’ve seen, and in Andrews, Lewis, Chakvetadze, Koné and the ever more prominent Asprilla we have things to be excited about.

Perhaps most of all, the fanbase has had a long time to wait to watch a successful, or even enjoyable team in the stadium.  There have been odd, isolated high points of course.  Special games.  But the last three seasons that we’ve been able to watch in person have constituted two relegations and…. yeah.  A blowing of what should have been a good chance to bounce back up again.  The slightest suggestion of momentum will be seized on I suspect.

Which leaves us…  well, if I were to guess, I would say in roughly the same place in the table.  Not realistic automatic promotion challengers, in with a shout of the play-offs in common with most, not really in danger of relegation.

But perhaps more enjoyably so.

See you tomorrow

Yooorns.