Roker Roundup: Oviedo on the scrapheap, & former trialist on turning down Sunderland contract

Wright wants to rewrite STID

Bailey Wright completed his to Sunderland on a permanent transfer in the summer, after his loan spell from Bristol City was cut short by the lockdown.

The Australian international told The World Game that he always wanted to return to the club due to the good connection he had with everyone at the club, and hopes to be able to rewrite Sunderland ‘Til I Die so the club can be successful:

I always wanted to come back to the club, I felt a good connection with it, it’s a good group of people within the group – good lads, good staff, good manager – which I really enjoyed working under. The overall club speaks for itself, everyone knows Sunderland, the size of the club and whats expected.

The pressures are there and I enjoy that – all those things play a part in me wanting to come back. I’ve got a good feeling about this season. We’ve been working hard day in day out.

We’d like to rewrite the [Netflix] series and change it, and if they did another one it would be on the successful Sunderland. The goal is to get promoted but we have to earn it.

Nothing’s given. The minimum is Championship football and we have to be at it every week in what is a tough league in League One.

The end goal is massive and to put some smiles back on faces and get that feel-good factor back at Sunderland. And not just the club but the whole town, because everyone loves the football club, and it’s a great place to be.

So when you’re in a winning environment and a team that’s successful, I couldn’t think of a better place to be and that’s what we all want.

With success at Sunderland, Wright hopes to force his way back into the Australian squad and insists he will be ready when that time comes:

Of course, again with football you have to very much playing well and doing well for your club to get the opportunity to be selected for the national team. That’s very much part of my plans.

There are exciting years ahead – club and internationally with Australia. International football’s been put on hold for a while until there’s a bit more certainty in the world, but there’s some good times ahead.

We’ve still got our qualifying campaign, and I’m not sure whats happening with the Copa America, but there’s a lot to look forward to. I want to get back selected into those international camps and be back in that starting XI.

I had a spell there where I played a lot of games regularly and I’d like to get back to that.

But there’s competition for places, it’s a good squad, so I’m very much focused on doing well here at Sunderland, being successful, and international stuff should hopefully come along with that and I’ll be ready for that.

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Gamble for York

Academy product Owen Gamble was released by Sunderland during the summer, five years after the midfielder signed from Doncaster Rovers.

Gamble had been on the fringes of the Sunderland first team at times during his spell at the Stadium of Light, but has now moved to non-league outfit York City on a free transfer.

The Minstermen’s manager Steve Watson revealed to the club’s website that Sunderland recommended Gamble to him and that the player impressed him during a pre-season trial:

He’s a player that plays the game a lot older than he actually is.

He has a very good reading of the game and is quite versatile, we played him in pre-season games at right wing-back and he is very comfortable there and is a very comfortable holding midfielder which again gives us good depth and other options to the ones we have in midfield.

Owen Gamble is someone who has been in with us since the start of pre-season, he’s at a good age and recommended to me by Sunderland and been in and around their first-team squad at different times last season and trained with them regularly.

Photo by George Wood/Getty Images

Trialist on turning down Sunderland

Dutch defender Wouter Verstraaten spent time on trial at Sunderland earlier in the year and had been offered a deal to join the club’s under-23 set up, but the 24-year-old instead chose to re-sign with South Shields.

Speaking to the Palatinate student newspaper, Verstraaten explained that he would not say he turned Sunderland down but rather South Shields offered better security to the player during the current pandemic:

The pandemic made me choose for security. This security was offered by South Shields and gave me a better feeling than Sunderland. So, I would not say I turned Sunderland down, it just didn’t work out at that time.

Photo by Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

Oviedo allowed to leave

Bryan Oviedo left Sunderland last year to return to Denmark for a second spell with FC Copenhagen but that spell is set to be a short one as he is allowed to leave the club.

The club’s manager Stale Solbakken told Bold.dk that now Danish international left-back Nicolai Boilesen has returned from injury, Oviedo will be allowed to leave on a free transfer as soon as he finds himself a new club:

If Bryan finds a club, he will be allowed to go for free.

Boilesen has returned, so we now have three left-backs and when Bryan came here for zero kroner, he can be allowed to leave us for zero kroner.

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