Roker Roundup: Sunderland ‘were the club who showed interest in Kisnorbo’ - and Papy speaks!

Unnamed EFL club was Sunderland

We mentioned the other day how Melbourne City manager Patrick Kisnorbo had been interesting an unnamed EFL club, according to reports by Australian outlet FTBL.

Now they say that it was indeed Sunderland showing interest in the former Leicester City defender, with Kyril Louis-Dreyfus said to be impressed by Kisnorbo’s track record in the A-League.

However, they go on to say that despite the Sunderland owner looking seriously at Kisnorbo, Roy Keane’s emergence as a contender has blown the other candidates out of the water.

Kisnorbo himself is said to be keen to become Australia’s next managerial export, following Ange Postecoglu’s success at Celtic but with Keane edging closer to the job at Sunderland, the 40-year-old will have to test himself elsewhere.

Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

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Djilobodji on being fired from Sunderland

Papy Djilobodji had a disastrous spell with Sunderland following his £8m move from Chelsea.

The club were relegated to the Championship and he would end up on loan for the season in France before being fired by his parent club following his refusal to play in League One.

The defender now plays for Turkish outfit Gaziantep and has been speaking about the acrimonious end at Sunderland with Turkish newspaper Ajansspor.

We were relegated and playing in the Championship was not very appealing to me. I went to America to prepare myself physically.

We signed an additional contract with Sunderland, it was a 1-month contract, I would work separately from the team and when a good offer came we would part ways.

When that deal came to an end I didn’t return to England, I was not attracted to play in a lower league. Offers were coming, but they were rejected in a way that I did not understand.

When I returned to England, a different treatment was applied to those who were excluded from the squad. I talked to the club and left the club with a small compensation and stayed away from football for 8 months.

The 8-month process was really tough because I was fired from Sunderland and even my family doesn’t know some facts about it. I learned very good lessons from this event, you can see the real face of people only when they hit rock bottom.

During that time, I was going jogging every day, I was doing my sports. I can say that when I didn’t play football, I was much fitter than when I played active football. This event opened my eyes and made me understand football and the world again. Since I am a mentally strong football player, I am now in Turkey and I try to enjoy every game and every training session.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

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‘Defoe was always going to Sunderland’

Charlton Athletic boss Johnnie Jackson was asked whether his club may sign a free agent striker now that the transfer window has closed and admitted that Charlton were interested in Jermain Defoe.

Despite that interest, Jackson told South London Press that it never went anywhere as it was clear that he was always going to end up back at Sunderland:

If something of interest came up then Thomas [Sandgaard] would be open to it, but I don’t think there is a lot out there. Jermain was the obvious one and he has gone to Sunderland.

We had a look around but a few that we had in mind or loanees did go to clubs. Jermain was the only out of contract one than I can think of, unless there was someone that popped up on the last day and got paid up. There aren’t any really on the radar at the moment.

Jermain was definitely of interest because he is someone I know well and played with. He’s a top player, isn’t he? You have to take an interest but the vibes were always that he had that connection with Sunderland before and was going to go down that road. We never explored it too heavily.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images