Two reasons to trust the Sunderland model - and two reasons not to

Say what you want about the Sunderland transfer model, but it certainly inspires debate...

Michael Graham | Feb 3, 2024

Two reasons to trust the Sunderland model - and two reasons not to /

In all my years supporting and covering Sunderland, I don’t think there has ever been a more divisive topic of discussion than ‘the model.’

Sunderland are trying to achieve growth according to a very specific plan, and they have total conviction in it.

Speaking about it this week, Kristjaan Speakman said: “We certainly don't want to be complacent about it, but we have lots of conviction in how we're working.

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“There's lots of choices within that and when you make a choice, you open that up for people to have an opinion on that whether it be fans, pundits, journalists. Everyone will have an opinion and that's the beauty of football, everyone will have a discussion about the business.

“But ultimately, whenever anyone looks into the club, they'll hopefully see professionalism, continuity and a conviction in what we're doing. We believe through that conviction, we'll keep getting success."

Speakman’s words did not end the debate, though. In fact, it only seem to ignite it even more.

So, in the interests of balance, here are two reasons to trust the Sunderland model and two reasons not to.

Which side of the debate are you on?

Reasons to trust the model

I’m a positive kind of guy, so let’s start with the good stuff. By that I mean the reasons why this methodology that Sunderland have shackled themselves to will bring nothing but overwhelming joy and success.

Honest.

Long-term sustainability

No one falls in love with football to follow the pursuit of financial sustainability. It’s not the dream and it’s certainly not sexy. The opportunities it afford you can be, though.

There is a perception out there that bankrolling your way to the top is the only real way to do it in football now. I say ‘now’ actually but in truth I can’t remember a time in my near 40 years supporting Sunderland when supporters did think the club were spending enough.

The truth is, though, that even if you can find an oil baron with unlimited funds, and they are not exactly queuing up to buy football clubs, Financial Fair Play has limited what they are able to do.

However, should you even want that anyway?

In the vast majority of cases, clubs with benefactors have a limited time in the sun. Blackburn with Jack Walker, Wigan with Dave Whelan, Portsmouth with whoever it was bankrolling them. Then there are clubs like Bolton who didn’t really have a backer but chased the dream by building debts.

We know all this from personal experience, too.

Ellis Short ploughed £200m into Sunderland and generally speaking, big-money signings were pretty commonplace for the most part. The problem was that because the football club couldn’t afford those players, and the wages that came with them, themselves, it posted big losses every year.

Then, as a result, the money that Short was willing to invest just started to cover the losses and money had to be borrowed to continue the actual spending, and it became increasingly difficult to thrive.

If Short had not been inclined to pay off the debts when he sold, the club may not have had a future at all.

Unless Sunderland can generate the revenue streams to pay their own way, that will almost certainly happen again. If, though, they can become self-sufficient, they can sustain the levels of spending needed to succeed. It’s all the benefits of having a benefactor without the risks and restrictions of becoming reliant on them.

Whether we like it or not, it’s the superclubs who have the money in football, and the only way Sunderland are going to get enough of it to be fund their way to the top table is by developing players that they want to buy.

Best chance of staying in the Premier League when you do get there

Is ‘how do you become an established Premier League club?’ a one-part question or a two-part one?

For many clubs and fans, it’s the latter; it’s a case of first figuring out how to get there and then working out how to stay there.

However, how do you actually achieve that? You can’t attract established Premier League to the Championship and for the most part you can’t afford them. Clubs like Leicester and Southampton this season are different due to coming down and generating huge sums selling players. For the rest, it’s not remotely an option.

So perhaps you loan players to get you promoted instead. Burnley did that last season and cruised to the title, but they already look like certs for relegation.

Hull are trying it this season too and have built a really good squad on the surface. However, if they go up this season, they will be tasked with building a Premier League squad from scratch due to nearly all their best players in the promotion campaign never actually being theirs.

By contrast, if Sunderland went up this season, they would arrive in the Premier League with players like Jack Clarke, Dan Neil, Dan Ballard, Pierre Ekwah, and Trai Hume, who are all already being chased by Premier League clubs.

Dan Ballard - Sunderland defender — IMAGO / Ross Johnston

That means summer spending would be used to build on what is already there, not replace what has been lost.

That is the theory at least. It reduces the ‘how do you become an established Premier League club?’ question down to a single part and a single constant upward curve in terms of improvement.

Of course, the theory is simple. Delivering it will be the real test.

Reasons not to trust the model

So that’s the case for the defence. To some it will be completely watertight and inarguable. To others it will be borderline fantasist.

Let’s now take a look at the counter-argument and examine the reasons why it can be hard to trust the Sunderland model.

Difficult to the point of fanciful

Let’s be clear on this ‘model’ stuff: Sunderland have not come up with some kind of genius new concept no one else has thought of before.

Find talented young players, sign them on the cheap, sell them for big money, reinvest it… it’s hardly anything new.

In fact, it’s practically football utopia and it’s nothing other clubs haven’t tried and plenty clubs still do. The problem is, as many have found before, it’s incredibly difficult to achieve.

Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Kristjaan Speakman — IMAGO

Why then, should fans believe Sunderland can do it? That’s a completely fair question and one the advocates of the model have to respect.

You can point at progress, which Kristjaan Speakman did this week saying: "It's three years, seven windows since I've been here, is it?

“We picked up a team that was ninth in League One with an average age of over 29. I think we've now got one of the youngest, most exciting teams in the country, on the up and competing in that top end of the Championship with probably a squad value over £100 million, you guys can assess that.

"If that's not progress, then I'm not really sure what is.”

Thing is, past progress is no guarantee of it continuing, and Sunderland fans have every right to care more about where the club is going than where it has been.

Similarly, everyone tells Sunderland fans to look at how far they’ve come, but how far they have fallen is at least equally as relevant.

Fans are also told to look at the likes of Jack Clarke, Dan Ballard, Trai Hume and Pierre Ekwah as evidence of the model’s success, but again that seems a little loaded.

You can look at Leon Dajaku, Jewison Bennette, Edouard Michut, Hemir, Eliezer Mayenda, Timothee Pembele, even Aji Alese, Jobe Bellingham and Abdoullah Ba to see players for which the jury is still out on at the very best.

So the apparent weight of evidence that it is working is, for many, not as compelling as the club claim.

It WILL mean selling players

Every club is a selling club to some extent, and no matter how much Sunderland claim they want to keep their top players, they are going to be sold sooner or later.

If Sunderland don’t get promoted this season then it is clear that Jack Clarke will leave. The club will do well to keep hold of Dan Ballard and Dan Neil too.

That would come with upside, of course. The club would have a lot of money to reinvest in the transfer market and that would probably allow them to start targeting even better players to develop with even higher ceilings.

However, you would still be essentially swapping proven players for unknowns who offer no guarantees, and that’s difficult for many fans to trust.

The argument that these players could be kept, not by giving them huge contracts, but spending the money to add more proven quality around them to improve their chances of being promoted with Sunderland is a fair one.

Fans see other clubs doing that too to a large extent. Granted, it’s funded by allowable financial losses within FFP and comes with risk, but it is an option.

And, in fairness, it is probably an option that has delivered promotion a lot more times than a model like Sunderland’s has.