From a fractured club beyond repair to a side battling at the top of the Championship, Sunderland have now recovered from years of poor ownership, suicidal investment and managerial catastrophes that saw them suffer back-to-back relegations from the Premier League in 2017.
Spearheaded by Tony Mowbray, who has developed a habit of winning matches, developing youngsters and an attractive playing style, the Black Cats are now on the right path to becoming a top-flight club, having narrowly missed out on promotion through the play-offs last season
While Sunderland are pointing in a forward direction these days, they are still haunted by their terrible decision-making towards the latter stages of their Premier League journey, especially in the transfer window.
The Black Cats’ scattergun nature to transfers saw them bring in the likes of Didier Ndong, Jack Rodwell, Papy Djilobodji and Ricky Alvarez, who bled the club dry with their extortionate transfer fees and wages but contributed very little to their plight towards relegation.
What was perhaps more frustrating than the nature of transfer dealings during this period was who the Sunderland hierarchy passed up the chance to sign, only to watch them thrive
Gus Poyet, their manager at the time, even admitted on the “What the Falk” podcast years later that he was “very, very interested” in landing a deal for the highly-rated 23-year-old. Coincidentally, Poyet also tried to complete a move a few years before when he was at Brighton.
He detailed: “After 20 minutes watching the game with my assistant I knew we had to sign him. It was too easy for him [Van Dijk]. With all respect for all the other players playing in that game, and for the Dutch league, it was like a first-team player playing with under-15s in a training session. It was incredible.
“At that time the price was £3m and Brighton was not able to buy him because our most expensive player was £1.5m.
