From TeamTalk:

"Stefan Schwarz, Lilian Laslandes, Bernt Haas and Stanislav Varga have been told they can leave Sunderland if the club receives suitable offers. Peter Reid has today announced that eight of his first-team squad have been made available for transfer following the disappointment of last season, with Jurgen Macho, Jon Kennedy, Tom Peeters and Baki Mercimek also having been told that they can leave. Schwarz has found himself out of the first-team reckoning this season and has already been heavily linked with a move to Benfica, while both Haas and Varga have failed to win regular starting roles. The latter spent a loan spell at Premiership new-boys West Brom towards the end of The Baggies' promotion campaign. Meanwhile, despite a promising start to his career, Laslandes has failed to live up to expectations following his £3.6million move from Bordeaux, spending much of last season on loan at German side Cologne, and he is being tipped for a return to France. Peeters, who has been on loan at Royal Antwerp for much of the season, is also allowed to leave, as is Mercimek, who has failed to fulfill the potential which saw him being compared to Lazio star Jaap Stam. The eight-player cull is expected to free up the necessary funds to allow Reid to go in search of new talent this summer in order to banish the memories of last season's relegation scrap and boost the club's chances of European football."

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

Answers

Sorry... Peters = Peter

Rather drastic action from him. It seems like a bit of a gamble to me. What if they get no players in? Their squad would be even weaker than last year and they are due an injury crisis.

Note: Sunderland injury crisis = Phillips gets an injury.

Favourites to go down.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

Couldn't we use any of them even if just to strengthen our squad for the CL? I bet they'd be cheap and if they performed well for us the mackems hate it ;)

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

but they're all crap

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

He'll be lucky if he gets thorty bob for the lot of them and that won't buy him much.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

Jim, it's no gamble whatsoever, they are all crap and a drain on resources. I'd be more worried about them staying than going, since Reidy might be tempted to play them.

Stefan would still be of value if his legs hadn't gone, but now he's slower than Shearer on crutches. Varga had a few outsanding games for us, but never found any consistency and seemed to put on a lot of weight. IIRC he doesn't qualify for a work permit any more, either.

ML³

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

I realise that they are mostly crap or past they're best but how many of them have started this season in a premiership match?

All I am saying is that if you don't find replacements you could regret it.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

Completely agree with ML3 here, they are all crap, only Schwarz has had any success but he is old and slow now.

There is no real gamble involved since they have played no part in Sunderland's recent sucess (ie in the last 5 years) (again apart from Schwarz) and they will be looking for new players anyway.

Agree about the injury crisis bit though, if Phillips is crocked, Sunderland are crocked, although that Kevin Kyle could turn out to be decent if he's brought in slowly.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

That's 8 failures for 9.5mil.

Before we get all smug about this shall we tot up the cost of our last 8 failures?

Bassedas, Ferguson, Dumas, Goma, Marcelino, Maric, Karelse and Quinn. About 27 million quid.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

Have we lost 27M on them, I mean did you think of what got back?

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002

We got the money back for Maric and Goma, made a profit on Dumas, got £4m for Ferguson and no comment on the rest.

Still nowt to brag about.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2002