David Moyes allegedly wanted Sunderland to splash the cash on new signings, just like Newcastle.
David Moyes
Ex-Sunderland boss David Moyes has told the Daily Mail that he presented transfer plans to the club with the intention of emulating Newcastle’s approach to relegation – but he resigned when Ellis Short refused.
The Black Cats suffered relegation from the Premier League last season, finishing 16 points adrift of safety after a disastrous campaign under Moyes, in which Sunderland won just six times in 38 league games.
Just a day after the end of the Premier League season, manager Moyes resigned from his post, ending his time at the Stadium of Light after less than a year in the post, having replaced Sam Allardyce last summer.
Sunderland have enjoyed a decent enough start under Moyes’ replacement, Simon Grayson, and Moyes has now reflected on his decision to leave Wearside back in May.
Moyes has told the Daily Mail that he wanted to emulate Newcastle’s transfer activity from last summer, which helped them win immediate promotion back to the top flight.
However, Sunderland owner Ellis Short stated that he couldn’t afford such plans, and that led Moyes to leave the club, even though he had long been told to never give up on jobs.
“I looked at what Newcastle had done to get back up,” said Moyes. “They had been the biggest spenders in the January before they got relegated. They also spent big in the summer to get back up. I had gone to Ellis with a plan of how to get back up if we got relegated and it had an illustration of what Newcastle had done. But he said he wouldn’t be able to fund it, he didn’t have the money.”
“In the end my decision to resign was both difficult and easy. Ellis’s response made up my mind but at the same time it was difficult because of where I had come from; the way I had been brought up by my dad — you don’t give jobs up, you don’t do that,” he added.
Newcastle not only brought in Jonjo Shelvey and Andros Townsend in January 2016 to boost their survival hopes, but then splashed the cash when they suffered relegation in an attempt to support manager Rafael Benitez.
Matz Sels, Jesus Gamez, DeAndre Yedlin, Ciaran Clark, Achraf Lazaar, Isaac Hayden, Matt Ritchie, Christian Atsu, Dwight Gayle and Daryl Murphy all arrived to help Newcastle win promotion, and whilst some of those players have already left, they got the job done last term.
Sunderland simply couldn’t afford that kind of outlay, and after Moyes’ exit, manager Grayson has been forced to rely on loans such as Brendan Galloway, Tyias Browning, Jonathan Williams and Lewis Grabban, as well as comparatively cheap signings like Marc Wilson, Aiden McGeady, Callum McManaman and James Vaughan – and Grayson will hope to prove that Moyes was wrong, and Sunderland can go back up on a budget.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
