Sunderland Predictions 2011/12 – The New Signings

With Steve Bruce wasting no time at all in signing up stacks of players, a total of 9 new faces costing an estimated combined total of around £23 million, I intend to asses the new faces and the impact they will have on Sunderland’s 2011/12 campaign.

Sunderland’s have already signed Welsh midfielder David Vaughan on a free transfer from Blackpool; Irish midfielder John O’Shea from Manchester United for an undisclosed fee around £3.5m; Defender Wes Brown from Manchester United for a fee of £1m; Forward Connor Wickham from Ipswich for a fee of £9m; Midfielder Craig Gardner from Birmingham for a fee of £6m; South Korean forward Dong-Won Ji from Chunnam Dragons for a fee of £2m; Irish goalkeeper Keiren Westwood on a free transfer from Coventry; Swedish midfielder Sebastian Larsson on a free transfer from Birmingham; Egyptian midfielder Ahmed Elmohamady from Enppi for a fee of £2.5m.

With Sunderland’s squad partaking in a pre-season tour of Germany and also playing York City, the pre-season could be an inaccurate portrayal of how the season may unravel, and therefore making the tour a perfect opportunity for the multitude of new faces to gel together.

With this in mind, Sunderland’s trip to Anfield on the opening day of the season will reveal how wise the signings Steve Bruce has made, a high-risk strategy, even more so when the Tyne-Wear derby follows suit on August 20^th at the Stadium of Light. In my opinion, the new signings act more as a sideways step from Steve Bruce who has neither improved nor detrimentally weakened his side, considering the outgoings of Darren Bent, who is arguably yet to be properly replaced, Jordan Henderson and Nedum Onuoha who returns to Manchester City after completing his loan stint.

Final League Standing – 11^th or 12^th/20