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Eboue Offered Contract?
According to ESPN sources, Sunderland have offered trialist Emmanuel Eboue a contract until the end of the season.
Ivorian Eboue - who left Galatasaray in the summer - has not played competitive football for quite some time, but made it through ninety minutes of football for our U21s on Monday night in their loss at Eppleton Colliery Welfare against Leicester City. Sam Allardyce and Paul Bracewell were present for the game to see how Eboue fared, and obviously saw enough to offer the former Arsenal man a short-term deal.
Should Eboue sign, it means Sam Allardyce has four right full backs at his disposal, something rather proposterous when you think about it as none of them are particularly brilliant. At least with Eboue he's defensively sound and experienced at this level, something that may well come in handy as we head towards the end of the season.
Allardyce On Goals
Sam Allardyce has backed Jermain Defoe to get his scoring touch back following a barren run recently.
The former Tottenham striker hasn't been at his best in recent weeks and Allardyce is demanding more of his forwards, despite Dame N'Doye and Fabio Borini getting on the scoresheet on Tuesday night against Crystal Palace.
He said:
We had five shots on target in the first half on Tuesday and the wee man had about three. We just hope that he’s going to get over this barren spell because we need him to.
At least Dame got his first goal to get him underway. We’ve got to try to score more goals. We had to rely on a wonder goal from Fabio Borini, which we want to see more of.
We need more goals of that quality in the final third, because it’s something we’re lacking in.
Allardyce, however, maintains the biggest issue right now is the amount that we are conceding:
Still the ultimate problem is the ultimate problem - we concede too many.
Until the lads get a grip on themselves and say we’re going to score one goal and win this game with that, then it’ll stay like that.
We haven’t won a game 1-0 since I’ve been here. When the pressure comes on, that’s what you’ve got to be capable of. The best result I could have got on Tuesday was a 1-0 because it would have shown we were capable of doing it.
But we didn’t. We lost our cool for five minutes, let them score two and in the end got ourselves a draw.
Personally, I couldn't care less about clean sheets if we are picking up wins. Our goal difference may well matter come the end of the season but I think we sacrifice a huge part of our attacking threat if we start telling our full backs to stop pushing forward. It's a tough balance.
Aden Flint Linked To Sunderland
Bristol City defender Aden Flint has been linked with a move to Sunderland and West Brom by the Bristol Post.
The report reads:
West Bromwich Albion and Sunderland are both considering making summer raids for the 26-year-old former Swindon defender, who began his career in non-League football with Alfreton.
Albion boss Tony Pulis and Sunderland manager are understood to have sent scouts to watch the 6ft 5in centre-back, who still has two years left to run on his Ashton Gate contract.
Pulis has first-hand knowledge of Flint, his West Brom side having twice played City in this season's FA Cup. Flint impressed in a 2-2 draw at The Hawthorns on January 9 and again when the Baggies won a third round replay at Ashton Gate 10 days later.
I've no idea who he is.
