Chris Coleman needs to shape the Sunderland squad to his specifications and Billy Jones already looks ripe for the cull.
With the January transfer window just a month away, Chris Coleman has a few more weeks to analyse his squad and figure out what moves he wants to make in order to shape the squad in his own image.
Sunderland need to sell before they can buy and there’s a real chance that Didier Ndong, Lamine Kone and Jack Rodwell will be sold if they receive a good enough offer, as reported by the Northern Echo.
But while Billy Jones would not exactly earn the club a substantial transfer fee, you wonder whether the right-back is also on borrowed time at the Stadium of Light.
The versatile 30-year-old has featured in 13 Championship games this season but it’s telling that Adam Matthews has taken Jones’ place in the back four since Coleman, his former manager in the Welsh national side, took over last month.
Matthews has started every game since Simon Grayson’s sacking.
So with the former West Brom defender Jones out of contract at the end of this season, it is difficult to justify a cash-strapped Sunderland side dipping into their funds to tie down an injury-prone and ageing defender who has immediately fallen down he pecking order under Coleman.
It will be interesting to see whether Sunderland would be open to the idea of selling Jones in January before he will be available for nothing.
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