Taking on the Grumpy Old B*stard: Is now the right time to offer Charlie Wyke a new contract?

The Grumpy Old B*stard says... “MAKE HIM WAIT!”

Hey, I’m not going to sit and pretend that Charlie hasn’t totally turned things around at Sunderland since Wee Lee came in, but are we just supposed to f*cking forget about the two years before this purple patch of form?!

Handing the big div a contract now would be sheer lunacy. Give him another two or three years, and he’ll likely stick his feet up... job done, money in the bank.

Doesn’t it make more twatting sense to keep him keen?

Dangle that carrot for as long as f*cking possible, he might keep scoring!

And if he doesn’t.... well, then he’ll leave, won’t he? He’ll revert back to the Wyke we’ve seen over the first two years of his time at Sunderland, and he’ll bag himself a move to Rochdale or summat. There’s really no f*cking rush. Sensible folk can understand that.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

Damian Brown says... “OFFER THE CONTRACT!”

Rather than regale the Sunderland faithful with the almost singular reason that Charlie Wyke is worth tying down to a contract right now, I think it would be more palatable for any mackem not living under a rock to hear the benefits of such business in general.

It’s simply good business. That’s the long and short of it. So skip the preamble if you like and take that away instead if you’re short on time. I’ll expand on it regardless.

If you have a player on an expiring contract that’s not only able to receive offers and discuss a potentially more lucrative future with fresh and exotic suitors, your first concern from a business perspective should be making cold, hard cash. You’re gonna lost every asset one day - the task set by a good business model is to profit from it. And so I will answer the question with another question: why would Sunderland not wish to profit from the sale of an asset?

I mean, it is a very Sunderland thing to do; get paid the equivalent of nowt for something that they could otherwise profit from, but in this new and brave age of a Sunderland allegedly out to maximise potential by hook or crook, where is the benefit of allowing a player that’s currently in form to leave for what might as well be a free?

Even if you’re somehow of the dubious opinion that Charlie Wyke isn’t someone worth keeping round in the campaigns ahead, why would you shun the opportunity to profit from his currently undeniable popularity? Here is a man who has defied the odds of all and sundry and proven himself a capable goalscorer - one of those rare elements that comes along once per season if a club is very, very lucky - and so I am shocked to hear the suggestion floated that he is somehow a bad deal in any context.

Without bandying about the possibility of hitherto unknown demands and the nitty-gritty of numbers (numbers rightly kept privy to the concerned parties alone, I might add) who could possibly suggest that a valuable commodity is allowed to diminish in value to the point where any of the above truly come off on top?

In short, why are we even having this conversation in the first place? Should Charlie Wyke be tied down at the next given opportunity to a contract that benefits both parties and guarantees Sunderland AFC a return on their risk and investment? Of course. I would ask “but should Charlie Wyke be given the most lucrative contract of all time and be heralded as a hero to the people of Wearside, his name emblazoned on every shirt and sung in every bar from now until Kingdom come?” but obviously no one is saying that. We’re talking about simple business sense here.

The man scores goals. He has a job to do, and he’s doing it in front of our very eyes. If he’s going to do it here we need to make sure he’s compensated fairly for doing so, and if he’s going to do it elsewhere we need to make sure we are compensated fairly for him doing so. We’ve spent time and money on Wyke but more than that he’s spent time and effort on us, and while the notion that football is a business is unpalatable to some, it is a simple fact of the game that he and every other player and every other club is fully aware of.

Let’s not act daft again, eh? Giving the man a solid contract is hardly bad business by any stretch. Even if somehow his goal return is lessened by an as yet unrealised promotion to a slightly better league, it’s a win-win scenario here. We bought Grigg for millions. If Wyke leaves for less we don’t deserve to hold an asset of value. And the only way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to convince the lad to put pen to paper and commit his future to the benefit of the club, be that in our kit or someone else’s.

This isn’t rocket science kids.