Roker Roundup: Robbin Ruiter talks Netflix, ‘regrets’ & the passion of the Sunderland supporters

Ruiter has no regrets

Despite being back up to current and established number one Jon McLaughlin, Robbin Ruiter insists that he has no regrets about his move to Sunderland.

Speaking in the latest weekly issue of Voetbal International, the goalkeeper says it was always his dream to in England and explains how the passion of the club’s fans is unprecedented:

Still, I do not regret my step. After five years of FC Utrecht, I was ready for something new: I had options in different countries, but my dream was always to play in England.

Edwin van der Sar was my idol I saw him playing at Fulham and Manchester United and thought: ‘I want that too, to experience that experience’.

In that respect, I have plenty to do here: the passion of the people is unprecedented in Sunderland, I was quite used to it, FC Utrecht is also a fantastic club, but this is really a superlative. If you want to compare, you’ll end up at Feyenoord.

Ruiter also discussed his role in the Sunderland ‘Til I Die Netflix series and revealed that he felt sour about his better run of form being cut out but understood Fulwell 73’s decision in retrospect and is happy about how he has been received since the documentary was released:

Last season I played a few mediocre matches, and two very bad ones, one was against Millwall, then I got a classic ball through the posts, a giant deflection. Well, those pictures were of course in the series.

But I had good matches in goal too, kept five clean sheets. I was on form until my injury, that would be a storyline in one of the episodes, but when I looked at the series, I did not notice it. I asked the makers what had happened and it turned out that they had to cut quite a bit because of the length, including in my scenes.

I found it...quite sour, but in retrospect, I understand that too - those crazy pictures of me fit in better with the complete picture. It has become a nice series, and despite everything, I have received a lot of positive reactions. On the street from supporters and on the Internet from people worldwide.

Photo by Nigel Roddis/Getty Images,

Anderson discusses Shinnie future

Sunderland have been linked with a move for Aberdeen’s soon to be out of contract captain Graeme Shinnie and another of their former skippers who made that move has been discussing the 27-year-old’s future.

Russell Anderson, who Roy Keane brought to Sunderland from Pittodrie back in 2007 for a fee of £1m, says he hopes the player will remain with the Dons but understands that he will have a big decision to make:

I’ve only got a fair idea of what Graeme’s going through and the type of things he’ll be considering. His stature at Aberdeen as a player, how well thought of he is and the chance to win trophies as a captain. That’s well documented but there are other things to take into account.

You’ve seen it happen to players that have done well here and have attracted attention from other clubs. I’d like to see him stay because he’s been such a big player for the team since he’s been here.

Graeme certainly has a positive impact in terms of the players around him and I think the fans appreciate that and see him as one of their own. That’s not to say that other players give less but I just think he’s infectious in terms of the way he delivers his performances.

But he is at a stage now in his career where he needs to make what he feels is the right decision as football can change very quickly and I’ve seen that myself.

The support would be disappointed if he moved on but I think some would recognise it for what it is.

The club will be doing their due diligence on potential replacements because they have to but they’ll be hoping they don’t need them

Photo by Patrick Bolger/Getty Images

Bristol City player defends Grigg tweet

Bristol City forward Jamie Paterson received a backlash on Twitter on Tueday night for a tweet praising Will Grigg, after the Sunderland striker scored the opening goal in the Checkatrade Trophy Semi-Final against City’s cross town rivals Bristol Rovers.

That led to some abuse from Rovers fans for celebrating a goal scored against them, which saw Paterson quickly delete the Tweet but, speaking yesterday, Paterson said he posted due to his friendship with Grigg rather than to one-up City’s rivals:

Will Grigg is actually a really good mate of mine. We were at Walsall together. I know that he got his move to Sunderland and he hasn’t scored for a few games. So he scored yesterday but obviously the Rovers fans weren’t too happy about it. I was 18-19 and we were in the same youth team together.

When I did that I didn’t realise that it was against Rovers. Well I did but I didn’t clock on as I wrote it. They thought I was just trying to wind them up. Yeah [I got a lot of heat]. But that’s just football.

Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images