Sunderland’s bid for promotion to the Premier League has hit a few snags in recent fixtures. Next up is Luton Town in what is another potential banana skin for the Black Cats.
Sunderland welcome 23rd place Luton Town to the Stadium of Light on Wednesday, and Regis Le Bris’ side could really do with a win to maintain their momentum in the race for promotion.
In their last outing, Sunderland drew 2-2 against Watford. Once again it was a game where the Black Cats dropped points from a winning position, in what has become a very worrying trend for the club.
But the future remains bright. Even if Sunderland aren’t promoted this season then they’ll go into the next campaign as promotion contenders once again, though the summer transfer window could see a lot of changes to the personnel.
Jobe Bellingham has Premier League interest and he could well be the big player departure on Wearside in the summer. But Kristjaan Speakman already has a replacement lined up in Wolves’ Tommy Doyle.
Carlton Palmer weighs in on Sunderland links to Wolves man Tommy Doyle
Speaking to Football League World, pundit Carlton Palmer has given his verdict on Sunderland’s reported interest in Doyle, suggesting that the Black Cats need promotion to the Premier League to even entertain the idea of signing Doyle in the summer.
Palmer said: “It’s a difficult one. Doyle wants to play in the Premier League and I think to guarantee his signature, they would need to win promotion.
“The problem for Doyle is that he has gone to Wolves, and he hasn’t played (regularly). You need to get on and be playing football.”
It’s reported that Sunderland view Doyle as a possible replacement for Bellingham, who’s valued at £20million by the Sunderland owners amid recent links to the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United and more.
“But, unless Sunderland win promotion, he may not be interested, but if they do go up, they may not have to sell Bellingham, as he might be happy to stay another year in the top-flight,” Palmer continued.
“It will come back to how much money they get offered for Bellingham, as at some point it becomes too big an offer that you have to accept.”
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Carlton Palmer makes two points, but one is wrong
To stand a chance of signing Doyle, Sunderland would certainly need to be able to offer Premier League football like Palmer says. That’s the obvious.
But Palmer then makes a rather confusing point about Bellingham which may be interpreted as Sunderland needing to offload Bellingham before they could sign someone like Doyle, who Wolves signed from Man City for £4.3million in 2024.
Sunderland AFC News spoke to Wolves expert Tom Griffin recently and he believes Wolves could cash in on Doyle for £10million in the summer. If Sunderland are promoted though, they’ll have their Premier League millions and they wouldn’t need to rely so ich on player sales to facilitate player signings.
Either way, Sunderland first need to get to the end of this season and see what division they’ll be playing in next. First up is another challenging home game against Luton Town on Wednesday night.