Sunderland striker update: Black Cats taking big risk to bring Mendy price down

Why is it taking Sunderland so long to sign a striker - AGAIN - and will he be the only striker the Wearsiders bring in.

Alexandre Mendy - Sunderland target / IMAGO / PanoramiC

Alexandre Mendy is still the top summer striker target for Sunderland, although the club hopes to bring in two new centre forwards before the deadline.

Sunderland have been stuck at an impasse with Caen over the 30-year-old for much of the summer, with the Black Cats’ current offer well below the Ligue 2 club’s valuation.

Mendy himself has been very public about his desire to join Sunderland, saying: “I still have things to do in football and when Yace (his advisor) called me to tell me Sunderland, it’s as if I had blinders.

“It’s a sporting choice and I’m really looking forward to starting this new adventure. I know the club well, he told me about President Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, his values and convictions that are the ones I share. There is also coach Régis Le Bris, a very strong coach tactically, who can make me pass a milestone. It exudes serenity and natural strength.

“I also watched the three seasons of the documentary ‘Sunderland ‘Til I Die’. I am aware that it is a club that can bring me a lot.

“I am really looking forward to my medical examination to go to England with my wife and children and to discover this stadium, these fans and this magnificent atmosphere.”

The problem is that those comments were made nearly four weeks ago, and Caen have been taken over since then. That has not helped the Black Cats in negotiations, but the simple truth is that Sunderland are just not offering enough money to tempt the French club into selling.

It’s no different, in essence, to Sunderland rejecting what they considered to be derisory offers for Jack Clarke last summer. If you want a player, you have to pay for him.

The hope on Wearside is that Mendy’s determination to move to Sunderland will eventually lower Caen’s demands. They are willing to go higher, but won’t go near Caen’s asking price, at least not yet. Sunderland believe time pressure caused by the ticking clock of the transfer deadline will break Caen’s resolve and result in a price somewhere in the £2m-£2.5m range.

That is the reason progress appears to be so slow, as it’s essentially waiting for the right moment to get the player for the money they want to pay for him, but it’s obviously a very risky strategy too.

Meanwhile, Sunderland also hope to land a second striker this summer, although it’s unlikely to be a name that especially excites supporters. The club are looking at a number of Premier League loans, which will inevitably mean a younger player.

They tend to happen mainly in the final days of the transfer window, and the club want to wait until a senior striker has been signed first. There was a serious interest in Dane Scarlett, but Oxford were willing to move quicker for the Tottenham youngster so they were able to complete a deal. There are plenty of other options on the list, though.

There will, of course, be understandable apprehension from supporters there. Mason Burstow was a very similar deal and situation last summer, and that did not really go very well. There will also be questions to be asked about whether Sunderland would just be better off leaving Eliezer Mayenda as the back-up and developing him behind a new senior striker rather than giving another club’s player valuable minutes.

Either way, with both the Mendy deal and any subsequent ones, Sunderland appear to be taking a big risk by being willing to take it to the wire this summer. And it’s only fair to ask whether, 18 months on from the Ross Stewart Achilles injury that set all this off, such a risk should ever have been necessary.