SUNDERLAND’S HOPES ARE DEAD AS MANCHESTER CITY JOIN RACE FOR £12.5M NEXT MBAPPE
As recently as November, it was suggested that Sunderland could hot gotten their mitts on Luciano Rodriguez had the Championship outfit parted with around £3.5 million.
Three months on, and with HITC Football having been informed that there is now interest from Manchester City, Chelsea, Nottingham Forest and Wolves in the 20-year-old Uruguayan, any chances the Black Cats had of luring Rodriguez to Wearside appear to have evaporated as quickly as Mick Beale’s hopes of winning over a more-than sceptical fanbase.
With neither Nazariy Rusyn, Mason Burstow nor Hemir managing to step into the footsteps of Ross Stewart, a Sunderland side more reliant than ever on the rabbit-out-of-the-hat magic of Jack Clarke have been left rueing their inability to bring in a centre-forward capable of scoring goals reliably at Championship level.
Sunderland struggling for goals and wins
Only Bristol City, in the division’s top half, have scored fewer than Sunderland’s 46, with a penchant for wasting clearcut goalscoring opportunities playing a major role in Tony Mowbray’s sacking. Not to mention the growing chasm between the Black Cats and the play-off spots.
How Sunderland – now onto their third head coach of the season in interim boss Mike Dodds – could do with a forward capable of scoring ‘a goal out of nowhere’.
That was how Dennis te Kloese – the director at Eredivisie champions Feyenoord – described Luciano Rodriguez when the Rotterdam giants came close to striking a January deal worth nearly £10 million more than the fee Sunderland were reportedly quoted a few weeks earlier.
“A player who can score a goal out of nowhere,” Te Kloese told ESPN before the negotiations ran aground. “He is a right winger who can also play as a striker. Rodriguez also has a great shot.”
Man City and Chelsea eyeing ‘Uruguayan Mbappe’
With 10 goals and six assists last season for Liverpool FC (the Merseyside giants’ Uruguayan namesakes) and having made a bright start to the new 2024 campaign, Rodriguez failed switch to Feyenoord merely feels like the delaying of the inevitable.
The 20-year-old will leave his homeland at some point in the near future. It’s just a case of when, where and how much.
If England is to be his destination – Nottingham Forest, Wolves, Chelsea and even Pep Guardiola’s treble-winning Man City side keeping tabs after the success of fellow South American Julian Alvarez – a forward who has been labelled the ‘Uruguayan Mbappe’ due to his searing pace and eye for goal may soon be another source of frustration for an already disillusioned Sunderland fanbase.
