Bardsley considers Sunderland future

Sunderland defender Phil Bardsley has admitted he may be forced quit the Stadium of Light to secure first-team football.

The 24-year-old had been a regular for the Black Cats during the first half of the season but has found his opportunities limited since the arrival of Alan Hutton in January.

With manager Steve Bruce keen to sign Hutton on a permanent basis in the summer it has forced Bardsley to consider his future on Wearside.

Bardsley returned to the side on Sunday in place of the injured Hutton, and will continue at right-back for the visit of  Tottenham as the Scot is ineligible.

He said: “It was nice to be involved again – every footballer wants to play football. If you’re playing, you’re happy and it’s the same for me.

“Phil Bardsley doesn’t get down because Alan Hutton comes in and plays – Phil Bardsley will look after himself and keep himself in the best shape he can.

“If it’s to be at Sunderland or somewhere else, you just never know. All I want to do is play football and we’ll just have to wait and see.

“Obviously, if you’re not part of the manager’s plans you have to look elsewhere and move on as every player does. I’m just looking forward to the remainder of the season and we’ll take it from there.

“If it was up to me, I’d like to stay. I enjoy it up here but I’m not the manager, and as every player will tell you, if you’re not playing you’re not happy. We’ll wait and see.

“I have a good relationship with the manager. I’ve still got a year on my contract. Hopefully I’ll stay but we’ll see.”

Sunderland boss Steve Bruce says he understands Bardsley’s frustration at losing his place in the side.

“I can totally understand Phil’s position,” he said. “I know the lad well; I’ve known him since he was a boy.

“I would be the same. If you’ve got anything about you as a footballer, not getting in the team isn’t a pleasing thing.

“Everything else can be great but if you’re not playing on a Saturday something gets to you.

“I have not made any decisions on anyone’s future. We will look at that in the summer.”

Bruce: We had our backsides kicked

Liverpool 3 Sunderland 0

Sunderland manager Steve Bruce has admitted he will struggle to take any positives from his side’s performance after they were outclassed by Liverpool.

Bruce was forced to concede the Black Cats’ had their “backsides kicked” by a Liverpool side who dominated the match from start to finish at Anfield.

The win moves the Reds up to fifth, four points behind Tottenham who have a game in hand, while Sunderland are eight points clear 0f the drop zone in 13th.

Liverpool took the lead in the third minute when Fernando Torres cut in from the left and curled an unstoppable shot beyond Craig Gordon.

Glen Johnson’s deflected shot made it two on the half hour before Torres scored his 20th of the season with a cool finish in the 60th minute.

Bruce said: “Sometimes in football you have to say you were well beaten and today we’ve got our backsides kicked, it’s as simple as that.

“Liverpool were far too good for us. Maybe two away games in such a short space of time took something out of us and we had injuries, but I don’t want to look for excuses.”

“We simply weren’t good enough to get anywhere near a very good Liverpool team. Gerrard and Torres gave a masterclass and we simply couldn’t contain them.

“Their first goal was a wonder goal. Sometimes you have to take a beating; Liverpool have some world-class players and we’ve seen that today.

“We’ll analyse it and ask whether they were simply that good or whether we were poor.

Bruce made two changes from the team that drew with Aston Villa on Wednesday, with Phil Bardsley and Lorik Cana coming in for the injured Alan Hutton and John Mensah.

“We had to make a couple of changes and when a chance comes along for someone else you expect them to take it,” said Bruce.

“We were all over the place in the first half and were slightly better in the second, but it was all over by then.

“There were not many positives to take, to tell you the truth.”

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File-Sharing here to stay

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Ball: Players should embrace United challenge

Sunderland under 18’s coach Kevin Ball will tell his players to enjoy the experience when they face Manchester United this weekend.

The young Cats are unbeaten in their last three games and travel to the north west knowing a win will move them a step closer to winning the Premier Academy League Group D.

Although playing United at Carrington will be a big task, Ball expects his players to treat the game the same as any other.

He said: “People always associate the big clubs with having the best teams and all of United’s players are quality. Every game is a challenge but we’re going to approach it in the same way as we would any other game.

“Some of our players will be nervous and that’s understandable. I hope that with the confidence we have given them in training that won’t be the case on Saturday because playing Manchester United will be a great experience for our players and I hope they embrace it.”

Ball’s young side have not lost in their previous three games against United and came back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 when the teams last met in May 2009.

“It was a great game and a draw was a fair result,” he said. “We’ve always had great games with them with them in the past and it was a compliment to us that they sent up the strongest team that they could.”

Sunderland are six points clear at the top of the league, and although second placed Nottingham Forest have three games in hand, Ball believes all the pressure is on the Midlands side.

He said: “In previous years we have always been the team out in front and had to keep getting results because other teams have been chasing us,” he said.

“Even though we are technically in front now, I would rather have the points on the board and then say to Forest ‘you catch us’.

“Winning the league is a nice accolade but it’s not the end of the world. If Forest beat us it’s because they deserve to beat us. If we finish second that’s because we haven’t done enough along the way to be in that position [to win the league] and that’s the way it should be.

“To get upset about it, to rue missed chances, every team will do that. Accept what you have done because it’s what you deserve.”

Sunderland defender John Egan is a long-term absentee and goalkeeper Lewis King is still missing with an ongoing shoulder problem. Striker Craig Lynch (ankle) is also ruled out while academy and reserves top-scorer Ryan Noble has joined Championship side Watford on an emergency loan until the end of the season.

Manchester United from:

Devlin, Johnston, Fornasiar, Fryers, Giverin, M Keane, Massacci, McGinty, Thorpe, Wootton, Brady, Brown, Cole, Tunicliffe, Hussain, Lingard, Morrison, Petrucci, Pogba, Ajose, Cofie, W Keane, J Keane

Sunderland from:

Wilson, Harrison, Watson, Marrs, Lamb, Laing, Bagnall, Adams, Gorrin, Elliott, Armstrong, Wood, Wilson, Fletcher

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Pompey allowed to sell players

Portsmouth have been granted special permission to sell players before the end of the season to ease their financial crisis.

The cash-strapped club appealed to the Premier League last month to be allowed to sell players outside the transfer window to raise funds but that was rejected.

However, following a board meeting last week where Portsmouth’s nine-point penalty for going into administration was confirmed, the Premier League have decided to allow them to make sales in certain circumstances.

A Premier League statement said: “The Premier League board meeting that convened last week to consider the administration of Portsmouth FC dealt with a number of matters beyond just the application of the sporting sanction (deduction of nine points).

“In accordance with Premier League rules, postponement of the suspension of Portsmouth FC as a member club was conditional on a number of undertakings being given by the administrators.

“These have now been received to the satisfaction of the board and therefore it has decided to allow Portsmouth FC to make player sales under the following circumstances:

1. Players may be sold to other Premier League Clubs but may not play first team football for the new club before the end of the season.

2. Players may be sold to a Football League or foreign club, subject to Fifa’s approval.

3. Portsmouth FC may enter into an agreement with another Premier League, Football League or foreign club that a player will be transferred to that other club in the summer.”

Pompey have debts of about £60m and have already laid off 81 staff to cut their costs.

“This has given us an option, but we’re not necessarily going to sell players,” said administrator Andrew Andronikou. 

“At the moment we don’t necessarily need (the money from sales). I’ve always said, we’ve had means within the club. So it’s a window that’s open to us.”

However, supporters groups have slammed the decision as the worst outcome that could have happened.

Brendan Bone, a member of SOS Pompey, said: “It all points to asset stripping of the highest order by the administrators who are lining our club up to be brought out of administration by the present owners.

“The Premier League should have taken the hardline but all they have done now is allow our club to be sold down the river.”

Bruce blasts complacent Cats

Sunderland 3 Birmingham City 1

Bruce was delighted with Sunderland’s quick start but blasted his side’s second-half display. 

Darren Bent sent a World Cup reminder to England manager Fabio Capello by scoring two goals inside the first 11 minutes to take his tally for the season to 21.

Birmingham rallied in the second half and Cameron Jerome’s strike on the hour made it a nervy final 30 minutes for the home side.

The Black Cats were forced to rely on a series of  saves from Craig Gordon to keep the visitors at bay before Fraizer Campbell put the game beyond doubt two minutes from time.

The result leaves Bruce’s side 10 points clear of the relegation zone with eight games remaining.

Bruce said: “Yes, we got a goal in the last minute – but anyone who was at the game witnessed the two sides of us.

“We were very good in the first half but in the second we showed complacency, took our foot off the gas and all those other clichés.

“We have our goalkeeper to thank because he was absolutely sensational. Craig was brilliant against Manchester City and was great again today. He’s proved just what a good goalkeeper he is.

“It was nice to get off to a good start but I’m disappointed with the second half. I will look at it tomorrow – probably hungover! The first half was terrific but there were warning signs just before the break.

“I wanted us to get going again straight from the restart but we simply didn’t get out of the blocks.

“We must erase that second-half performance. Some people have the ‘it could only happen to us’ mentality [about late goals] and I won’t keep accepting it. We must change that if we possibly can.”

The Stadium of Light powered by necessity

Sunderland chief executive Steve Walton has revealed the club would consider selling the naming rights to the Stadium of Light.

The Black Cats made a pre-tax loss of £26million in the last financial year and are looking at new ways to boost income.

Although Walton is aware such a move could spark fans’ fury, he admitted the prospect of selling the naming rights to a power company is a tempting one.

He said: “The naming rights issue is an extremely emotive thing and it would only be done if it was completely right for the business.

“We’d only do it if it worked and it didn’t take anything away. There have been a couple of things in that kind of area we have been looking at.

“It doesn’t necessarily carry the same emotion [as other clubs] because it’s a relatively new stadium, it’s only 12 years old. If it was say, ‘The Stadium of Light powered by somebody or other’, and the money was right, we might well do something like that.”

With their sponsorship deal with Irish bookmakers Boylesports due to expire at the end of this season, Sunderland could include naming rights in a deal with new sponsors.

“I’ve spoken to the chief executive of Boylesports recently and they would prefer it if we found somebody else,” said chairman Niall Quinn.

“Their business has changed and they’re going to go completely online with their advertising and PR. They’re also feeling the pinch like the rest of Ireland.”

Although some ground sponsorships, such as Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, have been successful, Newcastle fans were furious when owner Mike Ashley rebranded St James’s Park as sportsdirect.com@St James’s Park in a bid to attract investment.

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