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Wickham Linked With Town Return Sunday, 29th Apr 2012 10:12
Former Blue Connor Wickham is being linked with a summer return to Town by reports in the North-East. The 19-year-old joined Sunderland last summer for an initial fee of £8.1 million but has made only six starts and 12 sub appearances this season, scoring one goal.
Blues boss Paul Jewell is said to have previously enquired about the possibility of Wickham returning on loan two months after the striker’s move but with then-Black Cats manager Steve Bruce not keen.
However, current boss Martin O’Neill is believed to be more open to the idea of a temporary switch, feeling that the England U21 international needs to play more first team football before he is ready to be a regular in the Premier League with Town likely to head the clubs interested in taking him.
Jewell said on Thursday that he has already made enquiries about bringing Premier League players in on loan for next season: “That’s one route that we’re looking at. The problem is getting in quickly. I spoke to a club yesterday about a couple of their young players and the queue’s a mile long.”
Photo: Action Images
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It would be great but he's only gonna be a loan player! We need permanent young signings. Then again what a player wickham is on his day. I feel it's gonna be a frustrating summer again 4 us bringing players in.
As much as I agree that we need our own team, one or two loan signings may not be the worst idea, a couple of season long loans just to complete the squad a compete for places. Plus the fact, Wickham has only not been our player for a year, he knows the club, the manager, and his staff, and I'm sure he'd welcome the chance to help us back to the Premier league. He is the target man we need, he can score, provide space for chopra, and we know he's good at this level. If he wasn't we wouldn't have got £8.1 mil for him
I'd be very happy to see this happen and agree completely with samvoller's comment. This attack on loan players is ridiculous. Every team has loan players! Some don't work out, but some absolutely do! Lansbury is one example, Townsend at Birmingham also.
It would, though, probably have to be a season long loan deal for me. That's where I will agree with all the people against all this. Short term loans are generally a bad idea, but if you can get a good player (which Wickham is) on loan for a season then I don't see the problem, just look at Murphy, was he a mistake? Its not as if they're going to leave you in the lurch like the likes of Collins and Andrews did, because it'll be the end of the season and then you have the whole summer to find a replacement.
Some of the comments on Wickham's ability are also quite incorrect I think. Can't head the ball? I can see why you'd have said this during 09/10, because for his size his heading ability was poor. But, and I remember it well, when he came back for the new season he had clearly been coached on it and it was a much stronger part of his game. He did score a few headed goals last season. And of his goals tally, 9 wasn't bad in half a season was it, for, effectively a 17 year old? Also, having had a season in the premier league, under two very experienced managers, you'd like to think he is now, at least a slightly better player than the one who left us. I'd be very confident that he would at least equal what he scored for us last time round.
He's only scored one goal up there which is probably disappointing for everyone, but this was a great finish.
I like the shouts for Madine, but I see him as unlikely to join us, especially if Wednesday go up which they're looking like they might. So if Wickham is available I would definitely go for it. I'd hate for us to decide against getting him in, in the hope that we will land a Madine type, then fail completely, leaving us with no options.
So the silly season has already begun. We only want players that can take ITFC onto the next level and an overrated, injury prone 19 year old is not the answer.
Like RR 's post, Scott Sinclair an excellent example. One or two of these loans is fine, as long as it is young hungry players (no 24hour recall clauses please). But in the spine of the team, GK, CB's, CM need permanent signings. Wickham and Chopra would work well in my opinion. For people who say that we have scored 69 goals and don't need a striker? Top Strikers get you promoted. That is why Southampton got in Sharp, even though they had Lambert banging them in.
Not convinced that there is any substance to this at all. The story says we made an enquiry over 6 months ago but it didn't go any further. I suspect this is just some lazy journalism.
The "quick fix" approach hasn't worked and the club seems to genuinely be looking at longer term building now, so I would imagine that any loan players we go for would be with a view to a permanent signing. Wickham really wouldn't fit into this category.
I agree that defence is the priority but we can use additional strength up front too. A couple of season long loans would be ok if the terms and conditions are right...it's the over reliance of loan players that caused us problems before. This has a win/win/win potential.
Get him in on a season long. He's a blue and I love him. He will score a shed load for us over a whole season. Then we can buy him when we go up. Delusional? I most certainly am not.
Samvoller - to what end bring Wickham back? He scores 25 goals for us, fires us into the premier league and then goes back to his club and leaves us requiring to find a player to score us goals in the Premier which is A - hard to find, B - expensive or over inflated as we'd then have more cash, C - needing time to gel...
It's not the answer to bring a calibre loan player in this position. I agree maybe a few loans as maybe cover for Cressie, cover for a CM etc... but not one we need to fire us into the Prem.
@irishtim - because it's a short-term solution and we've been trying quick fixes for way too long now. There's no point of getting to the Prem to come straight back down again. You could argue that with the prize money we could look to re-buy Wickham but i think O'Neill would be a bit shrewder than that!
It's not a moan, it's an opinion on the move and i just don't believe he's the right foil for Chopra or the long term solution.
No thanks. Not against loans in the right circumstances but would rather use the wages on a punt on a young striker from lower leagues. Barnett at posh and le fondre at reading both seem to have done ok after stepping up.
Why would Connor want to come back and sit on the bench for a manager who doesn't trust young players? PJ would prob start picking elington ahead of wickham.
i wouldnt mind him but hes not that great of a finisher really and we dont want to rely on loans again i see today that rob earnshaw wants to leave cardiff i think he would be a great signing hes a proven goalscorer and pretty good with his head to get him and thomas kushak however you spell it and that would be a good start we dont need to many signing a GK a new CB and a proven goalscorer were pretty good in other areas we dont want to go stupid again and they need all season to gel!!
Losing players is not limited to loan players. We lost Norris, Leadboots and McCauley and they weren't loan players. They were OURS so what's the problem with loan players? You won't lose them to another club having forked out a large amount of cash to bring them to PR in the first place.
Provided the loans are long term with no 24 hour recalls and not too many of them, then loans can fill a useful gap and save the club money.
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