Will Sunderland sell Ross Stewart or Anthony Patterson this summer?
You can tell the season is starting to crank up to a conclusion, or wind down to a close for Sunderland at least, because the transfer speculation has started.
The Sunday press linked two key Sunderland players with summer moves, with Ross Stewart apparently being targeted by Stoke and Leicester all but certain to make their move for Anthony Patterson.
In many ways it’s a testing time for Sunderland fans. We have never really been in a position like this before when the club is actively trying to develop its own players while being open to eventually selling them.
What is the latest, though, with those two particular players and where do we currently stand with them as we head into the summer?
Will Sunderland sell Ross Stewart this summer?
When it comes to Ross Stewart, he has been linked with other clubs and he will continue to be. It’s just something that Sunderland fans have to accept for now.
Although the weekend’s Stoke links touch a nerve due to the Alex Neil element, the name of whichever club is currently being linked with Stewart is largely irrelevant.
Consider how difficult Sunderland have found it to sign a striker to even compete with Stewart. It’s fair to say that should the man himself be available, he will be on the summer wish list of just about every club in the Championship and at least one or two at higher levels too.
This week it will be Stoke, and they make for great headlines for obvious reasons but there is, at this stage at least, little reason to stress about it.
For starters, Stewart’s injury has changed the landscape somewhat for this summer. It would take big money to get him out of Sunderland at that stage, both in terms of a fee and a contract – the kind of money that may be undoable to commit for a player that has only played 14 times at Championship level.
Anything less that top dollar for Stewart and Sunderland lose any advantage of selling him now as opposed to gambling on him spearheading their own promotion charge.
Of course, the troublesome element in all this is his contract.
Ross Stewart contract latest
As everyone knows, as things stand Ross Stewart will be a free agent in the summer of 2024. That is far from ideal from a Sunderland perspective but it’s not panic stations yet either.
Talks are ongoing, although as we have revealed on Sunderland Nation before the reason for it still being unsigned is not due to Ross Stewart wanting to leave.
In fact, Stewart feels a great affinity with Sunderland, he loves the club, and acknowledges the trust they have placed in him. The club’s support through his current injury will only strengthen that connection. He wants to stay, he just needs a contract that reflects his quality.
Sunderland obviously want to keep him too. The problem is that it’s a difficult deal to agree because it will set a new level for the highest paid players at the club. Whenever a club do that, there are repercussions for every single subsequent contract negotiation with every other player, so the costs can spiral quickly.
Finding that sweet spot between what protects the clubs from spiralling costs and paying Stewart something comparable to his value is proving tough to find, but hopefully it can be found.
There are many suggesting that Sunderland need to up their spending and they will. This season the Black Cats have one of the lowest wage bills in the Championship, mainly due to being a newly promoted team.
There is a plan to increase that, but it will be done incrementally and sustainably. After all, those demanding Sunderland start throwing money around and become one of the division’s big spenders are perhaps not understanding what a perilously dire state the top Championship clubs are in financially.
With TV income very low, there just aren’t the revenue streams to support massive spending. Clubs who do it essentially gamble future assumed Premier League income on gaining promotion, but obviously for most that promotion, and money, doesn’t come.
Sunderland are attempting to do it a different way and build slowly and sustainably. A different kind of gamble, you might suggest, and fairly so, but it’s the plan they have committed to whether we like it or not. Hopefully, in a few years’ time, we will all be sat here saying what a fine decision it was and championing the genius of patience. Time will tell.
In the meantime, that is making the contract negotiations with Ross Stewart a little tricky, but the club remain hopeful of a positive outcome.
Will Anthony Patterson be sold this summer?
The Patterson situation is a much more difficult one to judge because there is a serious possibility of a Premier League club throwing serious money into the equation.
With Stewart, that’s almost certainly not going to happen. He’s injured and will only have a year left on his deal. Patterson, though… he is young, English, homegrown, full of potential and will have three years left on his contract.
He is, of course, still learning and makes the occasional mistakes, but there certainly is a chance that a Premier League club will make a very large investment in his potential. If that offer is on the table for Sunderland, you can see them being seriously tempted.
There is certainly no desire to sell him this summer, though. David Jones has confirmed at a Red and White Army meeting that Sunderland will inevitably sell top players, but ‘now is not the time.’
It is unlikely to be the time this summer either, although a huge offer would obviously force a rethink.
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