Ross Stewart contract situation: How worried should Sunderland fans be?

The Ross Stewart contract situation is in the news far too much and often has conflicting messages for fans, so let's try to piece together an accurate picture.

What’s going on with Ross Stewart and his contract at the moment? It’s a maddening question that seems to be dominating the Sunderland narrative more than it should be.

It seems that every day there is something new coming out, or something old repackaged as new. The press will likely ask Tony Mowbray for an update every week until there is a resolution too.

Today is no different. Sky Sports’ Keith Downey has spoken to The72 with a scary sounding update.

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“I’m told selling him remains a possibility this month,” Downie said. “They’ve reached an impasse. As things stand, that’s the offer and it’s not good enough compared to what Stewart and his representatives are looking for.

“Although he wants to stay at the club, I don’t think he’s too happy with the offer. I think it’s a highly incentivised offer where he has to reach certain milestones or score certain amounts to get the top level figure.”

So, let’s try to piece together everything we know to see if we can cut through the noise and find some clarity.

Is Ross Stewart ‘unhappy’ at Sunderland?

We might as well start with the latest stuff, which isn’t really anything we haven’t heard before.

It is the same information that Downie reported two weeks ago when he first said contract talks were at ‘an impasse.’ There is nothing new there at all really.

However, while Downie is obviously correct that the two parties have not reached an agreement yet, it’s far more important to analyse who briefed him and why. It lurks beneath the words itself but it tells you a lot more.

There is little evidence to suggest that Downie is being briefed by the club. He is not exactly known among Sunderland fans for breaking transfer exclusives. In fact, he has spent most of the last five years largely ignoring Sunderland entirely.

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That isn’t a criticism of him, by the way. He explained and acknowledged it himself that, as a reporter for a national broadcaster, League One fell beneath the remit of his employer. It’s completely fair and reasonable, but while he has been ignoring Sunderland it’s highly unlikely he has been cultivating the kind of relationships with the club required to be exclusively briefed by them.

Therefore, his information can only be coming from the player’s agent. That is important because it reveals the purpose of the information being out there – which will be to put pressure on the club in negotiations for a better deal. It’s just an agent doing their job, basically.

More to the point, I don’t think anyone watching Ross Stewart of late could ever possibly suggest there is any evidence of him being ‘unhappy’ at Sunderland at all. His work rate and commitment has, if anything, gone up since his injury earlier in the season.

The biggest thing that Downie’s information tells us is that Ross Stewart genuinely does want to stay at Sunderland. After all, an agent doesn’t leak to the press to put pressure on contract negotiations if his player doesn’t want a new contract.

What have Sunderland said about Ross Stewart contract situation?

Both Kristjaan Speakman and Tony Mowbray have both been unequivocally positive in their comments about Stewart.

They are adamant that fans need not worry about it and they are confident a deal will be struck before the club’s hand is forced in the transfer market. If their hand is forced, there is little reason to think it will be this month either.

Stewart has another year left on his deal, he is performing, and looking very happy and committed on the pitch. If Sunderland are forced into cashing in, it will be the summer.

Look at it from a buying club’s perspective too: Would you pay a premium on Ross Stewart now? Or wait six months knowing his contract situation may force down the cost of the deal? A panic offer could come in for him, but it feels like it would take a very large offer to persuade Sunderland to sell this month, the kind of offer that would likely tempt them regardless of his contractual situation.

“Firstly it's important to say we're really dedicated and been proactive trying to get Ross to sign a new contract,” Speakman has said.

“Everyone here is geared up to make that happen and we feel that's the right outcome. Certainly, if you look on the pitch his performances and desire to get back from injury show he's 100% committed to Sunderland.”

So what do we know about Ross Stewart’s contract?

It appears that Speakman is being very genuine with supporters with what he has said about Ross Stewart and his contract. Okay, so it was buried within a tonne of his usual office, corporate team building camping trip to Windermere style ‘management’ talk, but he is almost certainly being very transparent.

All the evidence does suggest that everyone is indeed ‘geared up’ to get a new contract agreed. The club clearly want to keep him, Tony Mowbray clearly gives him a lot of love and, perhaps most crucially of all, the player’s agent is actively trying to get a deal done with Sunderland. We can see him doing it from the shadows through the press.

Interestingly, the line out of Middlesbrough when they signed Cameron Archer this month was that the feeling they got from Ross Stewart’s camp was that he wanted to stay at Sunderland and would end up signing a new contract.

It appears for all the world that it’s just a drawn-out negotiation at the moment with both sides determined to get the best possible deal for themselves, and that’s fine. In fact, it’s something Sunderland perhaps have not done enough of in recent years.

Hopefully those negotiations will be successful, but they tend to be when all parties ultimately want the same thing. I suppose only time will tell, but there doesn’t look like there is any real need for deep concern yet. 

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