Mike Dodds has sent a message to Ross Stewart ahead of Sunderland’s trip to Southampton this weekend.
Sunderland are preparing for the second half of an extremely difficult week in the Championship, having been narrowly beaten by league leaders Leicester City on Tuesday night.
They will now travel to the south coast to take on the Saints, who sit eight points from the automatic promotion spots with a game in hand.
The Black Cats will once again take on a number of stars who have spent large chunks of their careers in the Premier League, such as Kyle Walker-Peters, Ryan Fraser and Che Adams, though one player they won’t come up against is Ross Stewart.
Despite not playing for Sunderland since the start of 2023 due to injury, Stewart completed a £10 million switch to Southampton last summer.
The Scot looked to be closing in on a return to action, before Russell Martin confirmed in November that he had suffered a setback that would potentially keep him out for the season.
That means the Saints could well be promoted back to the top flight by the time Stewart is able to make an appearance for them, while he won’t have played a single minute of league football in around 19 months.
While Stewart could have reunited with his former club this weekend but will instead sit on the sidelines, Mike Dodds has now sent him a message.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference (as per Sunderland Echo), Dodds said: “I have a lot of respect for Ross, he’s a great lad and worked really hard. I’m gutted for him.
“I know how much he will be hurting right now. He’s probably had a year or so of not being in a great place. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Ross.”
Who got the better deal from Ross Stewart’s move?
Sunderland have a resentment to many players who choose to leave Wearside over the years, but Ross Stewart isn’t one of them – for the most part anyway.
The Scotland international is one of the best forwards we have seen in a very long time at the club, netting 36 goals in 62 appearances over his last two seasons. In fact, I’m pretty sure he would have got us promoted if he had stayed fit last time out.
We all knew Stewart was better than us and he may not have gotten such a chance to join Southampton if he had waited – especially given his injury. At the time, nobody knew he would spent the entirety of this season out too, but it definitely looks like a very good deal for Sunderland now.
If the 27-year-old had refused to sign a new contract this season then he would have left for free this summer, while we wouldn’t have gotten a single minute out of him due to his latest injury. We wouldn’t have benefitted at all from keeping him around, but we instead raked in a whopping £10m for a player who had been out of action for most of the year.
I loved Ross Stewart and I really hope he succeeds once he does return, but I think there will be very few supporters who regret letting him leave when he did.