Looks like a good promotion/relegation year for the Irish (Well done Mick!)

[Stuttgart88]

no surprises about Clinton, although Delap is an odd one. Not playing particularly well in a rubbish Southampton side. He was regularly picked by Mick but more often than not stayed on the bench.

You were right about Stewart last week though.

[paul_oshea]

the fans seem to really have taken to him also. bbcs coverage showed a load of fans running over to him and putting him on their shoulders. about time too that he gets his chance to play in the premiership.lets hope he can prove himself

[JimmyP]

It'd certainly be interesting to see if Mick did that,
if a strike-partnership was formed between Elliot and Morrison at any point in his plans, it could only be good for the Irish team.

[Eirambler]

The Telegraph is saying that McCarthy is interested in signing Delap & Clinton Morrison, among others.

I have a feeling every second player from McCarthys Ireland days will be linked to Sunderland this summer.

What about Colin Healy? Any chance of him being back for next season?

Yeah Thorntons on his way out, there was speculation in January about Everton being interested in him.. Hopefully he gets a move to the premiership anyway.

There are (unconfirmed) rumours that Thornton's hit the bottle and the fags and has more or less p!ssed away his premiership chances. He was linked to Hibernian yesterday, which isnt a move thats going to get him in the Irish team any time soon. A real pity if its true cos the guy had unbelievable potential.

[Eirambler]

http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=41418

[eirebhoy]

Before you start dipensing marks, wait until he plays a few decent games in the premiership next season, its at a whole different ball game.

He had a few seasons in the premiership with Boro. Got sold when Robson took over. I think he's twice the player Holland is and I really think Keane-Kav partnership would be superb. Both of them know when to stay back and when to go forward and they looked a good partnership against China.

[Donal81]

It's a shame to hear about Thornton. The bloke is still only 22 or whatever it is. I thought Mick had got him sorted out?

Maybe he's just a bad egg. Wasn't there loads of hassle when he left Tranmere? Maybe it's just rumours, though.

I don't like it when any player wastes a career, especially not young Irish ones.

[pete]

Stewart is probably making way for Darryl Murphy. McCarthy seems to like at least 1 target man. I presume Deane is also on his way.

[ken foree]

well it's sad about thornton but maybe another year or two with a champs. club might be best instead of being an immature lad being thrust into the money/spotlight/bs n' hype machine of the premiership - that's if them rumours about him are true though! there's a lot of rumours out there

[JimmyP]

I saw the footage of Sunderland celebrating on their open top bus, on sky sports last night (Elliot was givin' it loads), and McCarthy said he wanted to bring in 8 new players, so there could well be room for Clint or Delap in there (maybe even Doherty, if his favourtism for Irish players knows no bounds )

[Stuttgart88]

Steven Reid is another that Mick admires.

[Stuttgart88]

Here's a real wild card: Richie Partridge.

I don't think he was ever in a McCarthy squad for Ireland though, but the 8 players he wants to sign must include someone on the cheap!

[eirebhoy]

Here's a real wild card: Richie Partridge.

Partridge must have had a good game against Leicester when he was at Coventry, a lot of the Leicester fans want to sign him:
http://www.foxestalk.co.uk/forums/in...showtopic=5250

[Stuttgart88]

There was one game on SKY where he carried the ball a bit of a distance, cut in from the left and placed the ball past the keeper. Was this against Leicester?

[dr_peepee]

I'd be Surprised if Reid moves on during the Summer. He's only now starting to find his feet at Blackburn. Saying that, this is going to be his third year so if he's in Hughes plans at all I'm sure they'd be putting a contract extension in front of him to avoid loosing him for nothing.

[Slash/ED]

There was one game on SKY where he carried the ball a bit of a distance, cut in from the left and placed the ball past the keeper. Was this against Leicester?

He definitely got at least one incredible goal against Leicester, not sure if it was live on TV though.

[NeilMcD]

It's now half a century since Sunderland assembled a squad so expensive they became known everywhere as the Bank of England club. Rumour had it they had spent a million pounds, unthinkable money back in the 1950s, to try and win the league.

Instead, things went badly wrong and, to the amusement of a nation, they were relegated to the old Second Division.

There have been quite a few ups and downs since, but for the last couple of weeks the team now managed by Mick McCarthy have been preparing for life in the top flight again. The ground has changed and even the football bears little enough relation to what was produced 50 years ago. But some things remain the same.

The passion for the club in the town remains as strong as ever with 50,000 turning out for the street party that followed promotion, and then there's the money . . . the team assembled by McCarthy - this week named Philips Manger of the Month - after more than 20 stars had to be offloaded cost that same magical £1 million to assemble.

Few supporters could have expected such a swift return to the Premiership when it emerged a couple of years back that the spending that accompanied the latter part of Peter Reid's reign had left the club hugely in debt and haemorrhaging cash due to an annual £30 million wage bill.

The debt now stands just short of £40 million, but the wages have been halved as most of the saleable big earners have been shown the door to be joined by those whose contracts have expired. In their places has come an array of next-to-nobodies assembled by McCarthy with the help of Ian Evans and, particularly, Dave Bowman, a long-time associate of the manager. Bowman appears to have a gift for spotting players and he is said to have played a highly significant role in bringing players like Liam Lawrence (soon to be the owner of an Irish passport) from Mansfield, Andy Welsh from Macclesfield and Stephen Caldwell from Leeds for next to no money.

Some idea of the seriousness with which the club now weigh up their spending is provided by the arrival of Neil Collins. Dumbarton wanted £25,000 for the Scot, roughly a week's wages for Phil Babb when he was at the club, but it took McCarthy and his coaches several visits to Scotland before they decided to take the plunge.

A handful of players continue to earn very large sums thanks to contracts signed under former regimes, but with chairman Bob Murray trying to reel things in on the financial side, the maximum wage for the everybody else this year was £5,000 a week.

A few big names departed rather than take the required pay-cuts when their deals ran out, but among those glad of the money in a tightening market was Gary Breen who earned roughly four times that during his year at West Ham.

Breen has looked good value this year, playing 40 games in the Championship-winning campaign and looks set to play an important part next year. With Marcus Stewart gone and Michael Bridges transfer-listed, Stephen Elliott will be the club's most prominent striker next year if reinforcements aren't signed.

His arrival, at the prompting ofBowman and Evans for (all add- ons now fulfilled) £375,000, has perhaps been the club's best bit of business over the past year with the Irish striker, who scored 16 goals in just over 40 games, now worth a multiple of that figure. Seán Thornton's future is less certain since being transfer- listed due almost certainly to his antics off the pitch.

The swiftness of McCarthy's decision to release the club's top scorer, Marcus Stewart, after promotion was assured shows he is no longer the sentimentalist some of his decisions while at the helm with Ireland suggested.

Promotion brings with it increased revenues of at least £20 million and McCarthy heard how much of that he will have to spend on players last week when he met with Bob Murray.

McCarthy says he wants to bring in eight new faces and the plan is to "do a Bolton on it" - sign decent players on free transfers, and make provision to get rid of them again in the event the club is relegated. Recent history suggests that is a distinct possibility and even a repeat of West Brom's last-gasp survival will be viewed as success.

McCarthy looks ready for the challenge even if the swift decline in his humour when asked about Roy Keane towards the end of a less than gruelling radio interview with Eamonn Holmes suggests he is no better equipped to handle the increased media attention.

[drummerboy]

Thought Thornton had mended his ways. If he hasn't he's a moran. Hoped he watched Gazza on the Alan Hansen documentary last night. The guy seems to be in a worse state than poor Paul McGrath. Hope Thornton cops himself on.

[tetsujin1979]

Thornton was linked with a swap deal to Hibs for Derek Riordan recently

[eirebhoy]

Whelan scored the crucial 3rd goal for Wednesday last night as they won promotion to the Championship. He also won man of the match for the 2nd time in the 3 playoff games.