Transfer Deadline Day Wrap Up

Transfer deadline day has been and gone, thank God, now we can remove Jim White and put him back in his cryogenic cocoon until the back end of August.

For Sunderland there was plenty of early excitement about Aiden McGeady of Spartak Moscow, and ourselves competing with Wigan Athletic for his signature although as things turned out Valery Karpin put us all out of our misery at about 6pm and from then it began to stare us in the face that Danny Graham was to be the only player coming in.

There was a wobble with Graham too after his former side Middlesborough had a bid accepted for his services but with no interest in dropping down the divisions he eventually signed for us for £5m. A very reasonable deal for a 27-year old in the prime of his career, who actually scored more goals than Steven Fletcher did last season.

Other names were tenuously linked but not ever really in the running such as Barnsley teenager John Stones, who eventually signed for Everton, but other than that from about 5pm onwards things were surprisingly quiet.

A curious one is James McFadden. Largely expected to be re-signed upon the expiry of his deal and loaned to Nottingham Forest for a month, this didn't come to fruition. As a free agent though we could still pick him up, and the loan window for Football League sides opens on February 8th, so should a deal be done between us it could still happen, regardless of how pointless you consider all this.

Louis Saha was officially released as he looks to pick up football more to his current level of ability while, likely to be Sunderland partner club in South Africa, Bidvest Wits.

Ahmed Elmohamady once again left the club for Hull City where he'll get more game time, link up once again with Steven Bruce and David Meyler, plus a few more Egyptian internationals the Humberside side picked up on deadline day.

Surprisingly there was no moves for Craig Lynch or Ryan Noble, but much like with McFadden they could be waiting for the loan window to open.

A quiet day, but we've added a goalscoring quality player to our ranks, and we very much welcome our new number nine.