Kristjaan Speakman has explained why Josh Robertson left Sunderland on deadline day.
Sunderland manage to keep hold of most of their key players in the January window, though a frustrating saga around Alex Pritchard came to an end when he joined Birmingham City.
The Black Cats also sent Jewison Bennette, Nectarios Triantis, Jay Matete, Jack Diamond and Eliezer Mayenda out on loan, while another youngster in Josh Robertson left permanently.
The midfielder had spent ten years on Wearside and had just netted five goals in 10 appearances in the U18 Premier League before he was snapped up by Brighton & Hove Albion last week.
Robertson was very highly-rated in Sunderland, with journalist James Copley previously admitting it as a huge ‘blow’ and a ‘massive shame’ to be losing such a ‘talented’ player.
However, the 18-year-old was approaching the end of his scholarship deal and the Black Cats hadn’t been able to persuade him to extend his contract, so had no choice but to allow him to move on.
Speaking to Sunderland Echo, Kristjaan Speakman said: “With regard to Josh, it’s really difficult.
“We’re trying to make sure we deliver a programme that players want and players need. That doesn’t necessarily always fit them and it’s hard. There’s a lot of other football clubs that are out there that are trying to steal your players and we’ve had a really good record recently of retaining talent.
“Josh just felt he wasn’t in a position where he felt he couldn’t commit to what we were offering him and where we were. He plays in a position on the pitch where we’ve got other players at the club and we couldn’t make guarantees on certain things, which I don’t think we should be doing.
“We got to a point where we presented him with a choice. On the one hand we’re losing Josh but on the second hand we’ve got young Rhys [Walsh] who is joining us which I think just shows, from our football club, whether it’s senior first-team players all the way down to our youth team, we’re trying to acquire talent where possible.”
Sunderland can’t be blamed for Robertson’s exit
Sunderland used to be terrible at keeping hold of young talent and allowed the likes of Sam Greenwood and Joe Hugill to leave for minimal fees.
The club have done much better under Kyril Louis-Dreyfus though, with Chris Rigg’s deal last year proving to be a huge stepping stone in what has been a difficult period for retaining young talent.
Our success at bringing through young players such as Jack Clarke and Dan Neil has encouraged others to follow in their footsteps and remain at Wearside due to the promise of first team football.
However, in cases like Josh Robertson’s, we can’t do much about it if he really wants to go to the Premier League, and that’s not necessarily our fault. A club like Brighton is hard to turn down, as they are just as good with the youngsters.