Matt Piper

[webmaster]

Story below nicked from the Grauniad. I'd be surprised if MA spent so much of his budget on one player, but he'd certainly be a welcome signing, and better than some of the oldies being mentioned.

Micky Adams is set to make his first signing of the summer after offering £1m for the Sunderland winger Matt Piper.
Adams is desperate to bring the former Leicester player back to the Walkers Stadium and take advantage of Sunderland's miserable relegation from the Premiership.

Piper, 21, joined the Black Cats for £3.5m last summer after just one full season with Leicester but made only 13 appearances this term because of a niggling hernia injury.

Cash-strapped Sunderland are desperate to offload players as they prepare for the harsh financial realities of life in the First Division.

Adams said: "Matt has not had the best of times at Sunderland, with three different managers this season alone, but there's no doubt he's got a lot of ability.

"He was very popular here at Leicester and if we could agree an acceptable price we would like to see him back because we know all about him."

The Sunderland manager Mick McCarthy is considering the bid but is expected to be urged by his board to allow Piper to leave the Stadium of Light. Piper will have to take a hefty pay cut but is guaranteed first-team football at the newly promoted Foxes.

Southampton are also keen on the England Under-21 player even though he had turned them down in favour of a move to Sunderland, but Piper's Leicester connections have put Adams firmly in the driving seat. Piper's father, Mark, is also his agent and wants his son to kick-start his career back in the Premiership - and with Leicester.

 

[Anonymous]

This is also on http://www.teletext.co.uk/sport/generic.asp?slot=88&page=1&ref=70

I would love to see him back at home and if anyone knows his dad, can you have word in his shell like.

 

[Anonymous]

sounds almost too good to be true - he's top of my wish list!
I don't thinkl MA would hesitate to spend £1M on a young, pacy player who has proved (with us) that he can cut it in the Prem.
let's hope Sunderland are poorer than church mice....

 

[Anonymous]

Finally we might have a good bit of business done by Leicester aswell as a superb player. After Zjelco Kalac and Darren Eadie both proving disasterous business deals, £1m for a player who we sold for £3.5m only 9 months ago seems almost too good to be true.

 

[Yorkshire Vixen]

Dont they say you should never go back to a club - because it wont be the same. I hope he does come back and carry off where he left off.

 

[City Fan]

This is also on http://www.teletext.co.uk/sport/generic.asp?slot=88&page=1&ref=70

I would love to see him back at home and if anyone knows his dad, can you have word in his shell like.

I know his cousin!

 

[Anonymous]

Family fun

Tell his cousin to have a word with his dad and Agent!

 

[Anonymous]

How much did we pay for KALAC????

anybody??? :?

 

[webmaster]

Kalac cost £760,000 from Sydney United.

 

[Renard]

You can view all of our (and everybody elses) transfers and fixtures from forever at soccerbase.com. I have no affiliation to the site, it's just brilliant.

 

[webmaster]

Soccerbase is excellent, specially for finding out results from decades ago.

But some of the info (specially the stuff from more than a couple of years ago) is inaccurate. For example there's no record of Kalac on their transfers page, and the info about his time in England is wrong.