Sunderland Transfer News: Black Cats Lining Up Tom Huddlestone Bid?
Daily Star. The Italian has been one of the busiest Premier League managers in the current window, making no fewer than 11 signings, the vast majority of which have arrived from the continent with no experience of English football. And after watching his Black Cats struggle to an unconvincing 1-0 pre-season friendly win over Midtjylland in Denmark on Wednesday night, the Italian boss has revealed he will be looking a little closer to home for his next signing. Di Canio said:
He needs to be English, with a physical presence because we have analysed that is what were missing. The club is working on two full-backs, but more important for me is the need to get a key player in central midfield someone who needs to be English. English because he needs to know English football inside out and be a quality player because we want to play attractive football which gets good results. We need a real playmaker with real identity and not just a player who can fill in.The ex-Lazio player's comments serve as a withering assessment of Lee Cattermole who, on paper, appears to fit the criteria outlined above. But the 25-year-old has yet to play a game for Di Canio, and has been linked with a move to Fulham. Instead, the Sunderland manager is likely to launch another bid for Tottenham's Huddlestone, having enquired about the 26-year-old midfielder earlier this month, only to find that Spurs's valuation was far apart from his own. If a deal cannot be brokered, Di Canio has a back-up list that includes Reading's Danny Guthrie. Di Canio is keen to bring in reinforcements this summer after being left angry by some of his player's performances against FC Midtjylland, and despite Adam Johnson scoring what proved to be a winning goal early on, very little happened afterwards. The fiery Italian fumed: That was not the performance I wanted to see.
I would have preferred to lose and see a better attitude and improvement in our play, rather than win and take a step back from our play in Hong Kong. I didnt enjoy it because I expected a bit more from some of my players. I have to make sure they change their mentality, otherwise we have a problem.