Roker Roundup: Former teammate doubts that Charlie Wyke is good enough to play for Celtic

McDonald unsure about Wyke’s pedigree

As Charlie Wyke’s Sunderland contract draws to a close, speculation has increased on the 30-goal striker’s future, with multiple teams said to be eyeing the 28-year-old.

The likes of Middlesbrough, Cardiff City, Nottingham Forest, Millwall and Celtic have all been linked with moves for Sunderland’s star striker but, according to former Celtic forward Scott McDonald, a move to the Scottish Premiership giants does not make sense.

McDonald was talking about Wyke to the Celtic Huddle podcast and said although Wyke has a pedigree in the lower leagues of England, he does not think he would become first choice at Celtic Park should he head north:

Charlie was a young boy at Middlesbrough coming through when I first signed under Gordon Strachan. He’s got a pedigree in the lower leagues.

Whether or not that crosses over to Celtic, I’m not quite sure he would be a first-choice pick but he’s very robust, a Lyndon Dykes type, and one of the best players in League One.

I’m not sure if he’s a Celtic signing.

You can listen to the full Celtic Huddle podcast with Scott McDonald via the media player below:

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Allen relives Sunderland shock

Sunderland were surprisingly knocked out of the FA Cup back in 2006 by Martin Allen’s Brentford, as DJ Campbell scored twice to take the League One outfit through to the Fifth Round at the expense of Mick McCarthy’s Premiership side.

Allen relived his side’s FA Cup heroics on the latest edition of the Undr The Cosh podcast, as he stopped by to talk about his football career and said it was special day to beat Sunderland live on TV:

It was a special time for us of course from a team that was going to get relegated the year before to climb like we did and to play a club like Sunderland with the history. It was a special day to beat Sunderland live on TV, Mick McCarthy, some of the players. We’d been watching them in the Premier League and it’s special.

Mick was fine afterwards, he came in and said well done. We were good though, we had some really good players, in DJ Campbell we had a match winner and our game plan was pretty simple. All 10 players would stick together and we would not be stretched and be opened up by their more talented players and get it to Campbell as quick as we could and for him it was ‘do what you like’. All of the rest of us played compact and stayed together, get it to Campbell and we put it all on him. He absolutely loved it, he had license to be the man. We set it up for him to be the golden boy.

You can watch the full episode of Undr The Cosh with Martin Allen by pressing play on the video below:

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Houghton on early career

Current England and Manchester City captain Steph Houghton made her Monday Night Football debut on Sky Sports earlier this week, alongside Sunderland non-executive director Dave Jones and Jamie Carragher.

While on the show, the former Sunderland defender discussed growing up as a Sunderland fan and credited the support and guidance of her Sunderland-mad family and village she grew up in for being able to achieve as much as she has during her career:

The North-East is a hot bed for football, they love their football up there. I was fortunate in the sense that I supported Sunderland and a lot of my family supported Sunderland. My whole village was Sunderland mad and they loved the fact that I played football and I don’t think without their support and guidance I would be where I am today.

Of course it’s not all smooth, or full of high’s. You do get people having a perception of a girl playing football at that time and I think for me I seen it as more of a challenge. If someone said something about a female playing football, I thought right well ‘I’ll prove you wrong.’ I played against the lads and I think that’s where I got my competitiveness from and my winning mentality because no matter whether i was at school or in a game, I just always wanted to compete with the lads.

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