Sunderland 'Til I Die (2018) s01e05 Episode Script

1
-How nice is that beach, though, isn't it?
-Yeah, beautiful.
Not half as nice as this bacon sandwich
you're buying.
-Thirty years.
-Yeah, long time.
-Wales Under-17s, it was, first time we
-We were unbeaten.
Here we go. He always tells this story.
He don't exaggerate the story by the way.
The lump turns up.
We lost 4-1 to Northern Ireland.
I was a year younger, honestly.
-Morning.
-Morning.
How are you?
-Okay, you?
-Good, thanks.
Different managers like different things.
So, when you come into a new job,
obviously, you're trying to get over
your ideas and how you think
things should be done.
You make the same run.
You close that down.
Do it. You stay where you are.
That doesn't happen overnight.
There we are.
But, again, we've been here two months.
It's not long really.
Close it down.
We were so lucky with Wales.
Yeah.
We didn't have one bad egg in the group.
Staff, fantastic.
That's quite rare to have that.
That's it.
If you've got bad attitudes in there,
generally, they don't change.
-It's not worth doing.
-You've gotta get them out.
We've also seen some good things as well.
Definitely things that we can work on,
and work with, and progress at.
Some really good characters
in there as well, you know?
Got a real chance. I believe that.
I think with what we've got, a nucleus
We need to add to it, and grow it.
There's an opportunity. It's not
an opportunity if you don't take it.
The problem with opportunity is
they're always hard work.
That's why a lot of people
don't take them.
Go on in, son!
Great header.
Finally, Sunderland got a manager
that everybody feels
is the right man for the job.
He exudes real passion
and likes a challenge clearly.
He's one of those
who will not throw in the towel.
-The net went like that.
-I didn't touch the net. You know it.
He actually makes you believe
he can turn it around.
He makes you believe
that this club can be big again.
When you've got hold of someone like that,
you wanna keep holding them.
That's the big fella Smash him!
Yeah! That's good stuff.
He looks like he just got off a catwalk.
You look like you've been
in a sauna for hours.
We want the place to be jumping,
that's what we're aiming for.
-Hi, babe.
-Hi. Happy New Year.
-How are you?
-I'm all right.
We're gonna get three point.
I told the gaffer that
on Saturday and yesterday.
How you doing? All right?
Happy New Year to you too.
2017 was a very difficult year.
But we all want 2018
to be a whole lot better.
So, hopefully, it will be.
Okay. Three pounds, darling. Thank you.
Hey.
-How are you?
-I'm fine.
-You all right then?
-Yeah, fine, 100%.
New Year.
It's a good atmosphere. Yeah, much better.
Nice to see a smile
on all the lads' faces.
Hopefully, now,
it can be a snowball effect.
I think we've really got to get
a win at home as well.
I think that's really important.
Well, there's a bit of a buzz
about the place, now, innit?
The doom and gloom seems
to be lifted.
-What do you reckon? 2-1?
-2-1.
2-1, Sunderland.
Any, fiver each, mate. Any one you want.
All in honor of a style of management
that'll bring this club forward.
Happy New Year.
Welcome to the first game of 2018
here at the Stadium of Light.
I hope everyone is without hangovers
And the team, too, can they move on
from a dismal 2017?
When a new manager comes in,
it gives everyone a fresh start really.
He put me straight in,
and he stuck with me,
basically, from the start.
So it was very good for me personally,
him coming.
It'd certainly be a massive three points
with the way the table is now.
Win the game today, see some daylight
for the first time in how long
between themselves and the bottom three.
The referee gets the game underway.
You're looking at Darron Gibson now.
All of a sudden, he's been able to get
around the field.
His passing has been excellent.
He's gotta do that week in, week out.
Go on, Sunderland!
They're starting to come to life a bit,
Sunderland.
Gibson is down at the edge
of the center circle.
I think it's curtains for Gibson.
I have to say he's been
one of their better players.
Sunderland started
by dominating the game.
but without Gibson,
they're a completely different team,
and it's Barnsley
who now look most threatening.
The ball is swept in here,
and it's headed in!
Nobody picked him up
and it was a simple header.
Sunderland's defense went to sleep.
Use your head!
This is the last roll
of the dice for Sunderland.
Can they get anything
from this crucial match?
No.
Barnsley win by a goal to nil
and Sunderland drop back
into the bottom three of the Championship.
That was a poor performance, wasn't it?
No ideas.
The team we have now
You've got McGeady. You've got Oviedo.
You've got a lot of good players.
We should do way better
than we're doing now.
We need a stronger team.
We need to get back
in the Premier League where we belong.
Not a great way to start a new year.
I'm just bitterly disappointed
with the result and the performance.
Even worse than losing the points is
now, it looks like
we'll lose Darron Gibson
for eight weeks, 10 weeks possibly
with his groin.
That's a worrying thing for us.
We've gotta fatten the squad up
in numbers,
and we've gotta add a bit of quality.
I've torn my adductor tendon off the bone.
They basically had to go in
and reattach it with two screws.
I went to switch one of the passes
and just felt a pop.
Just literally felt like I'd been shot.
I thought I was just getting
into my stride,
and I thought I was starting
to play really well.
It's frustrating that it happened
when it did.
Come on, boys. Let's go!
This January is massive
for the football club. It really is.
If the targets that we've identified
can come in
it'll give us a massive boost.
If not, it'll be difficult.
We need to make sure
that this window works for us.
We need to make sure that players
that don't want to be here are gone,
and we bring in players that do,
and want to work hard, and keep us up.
Yeah, come on, Sunderland.
Get somebody signed.
No, I mean, it's not even funny.
It'll not be funny
if we don't sign no one.
Now, put your paw up, eh.
Say Haway the lads.
Over Christmas and New Year,
things have improved lots.
We were looking at keeping a clean sheet,
and the team seemed
to be pulling together,
but we were still not scoring enough.
Grabban's the only one
who's getting us any goals.
We can't rely on just him.
To get out of the relegation zone,
we really need to get another striker
to help us out.
-Bye, see you lot.
-See you later then.
I'll see you whenever.
You leaving?
I'll see you Monday.
You gonna turn up Monday?
If I'm here on Monday,
I'll be here forever.
I'll be buzzing if you walk in, mate.
See you later, mate. See you Monday, mate.
See you Monday, mate.
-Yeah, see you Monday.
-See you Monday, mate.
A blow for Sunderland.
Their top scorer, Lewis Grabban,
has been recalled from his loan spell
by Bournemouth,
because the player wanted
to leave the Stadium of Light.
Grabban has 12 goals
for the Championship's bottom side.
Bournemouth plan to sell him
during the window.
Wolves are believed to be interested.
Lewis was scoring a lot of goals
for the team.
So, you don't wanna lose a player
that scores goals, naturally,
but he didn't wanna be here.
Sometimes, you get people
who have a mentality of they deserve it.
They deserve good things.
They're entitled to it,
which they most certainly aren't.
'Cause we can't carry players
in 90 minutes.
Everybody sees the finished article
on Saturday afternoon in 90 minutes.
It's every day in training
building up to that.
What's your body language?
How's your mentality?
Good defending! Let's play purple!
He didn't wanna be here,
so he had a conversation with Martin,
and that was that.
He went back to Bournemouth.
The main reason is that I got called back.
I would have stayed if I needed to stay.
Because I didn't dislike playing
at Sunderland at all.
But little things did start
to make me question
how the second half of the season
was gonna go.
If you haven't really spoken
to a new manager when he comes in
or if you start getting taken off.
I was starting to get whipped off
on 65 and 70 minutes,
and I was thinking,
"I'm not sure that's for me."
Maybe it's a bit selfish,
but I just thought, "No."
Grabban has scored
11 goals this season,  three penalties.
Then you look down the rest of the team.
McGeady has got four.
Honeyman has got three
in the Championship.
Below that, you're looking
at ones and twos.
So, yeah, there is an emphasis
on Grabban scoring the goals.
The other problem is
that when you've got loan players,
their heart and soul, eventually,
is not necessarily wholly in the club.
If you don't wanna be here,
yeah, fair enough. Go.
But there's a time when you can go
and a time when you cannot go.
And unfortunately,
we haven't got players in numbers
for to let them go, really.
Good. There you go.
Good. Check it on, Bali.
Shoot! First time!
Losing two strikers
and not having a replacement is worrying.
Run through, Bali! Run!
There's no question.
One of the biggest problems
Sunderland will face
if they're gonna stay up is scoring goals.
I just don't see how a football club,
in any division, in any league can survive
without a striker.
Fuck's sake, Bry!
Grabs scored so many goals for us.
It's disappointing for us that he's left,
because he was our top goal-scorer.
Obviously, Vaughan's gone as well,
so I think we need a couple strikers in.
We're left with Joel, Maja,
two decent players,
but untested and inexperienced
at this level.
Morning.
It was forecast, but I didn't think
we'd get this much in an hour.
Nigh on an inch. My god!
I was only out there 40 minutes ago,
and it was perfect.
I've gone down there now with a ball,
and it's starting to drag a little bit.
So it's just a case
of what the management want to do.
Believe me, there's nothing I hate
more than snow. I absolutely detest it.
It's frustrating. I know
they wanna get out there to train,
but to shift that amount of snow,
in that amount of time,
it just isn't gonna happen.
At least it's nice for the kids, isn't it?
I'm getting bombarded.
We're gonna blast the first team.
Tex is locking that door,
and we're gonna hit them all.
Any chance at opening the door?
Embarrassing. Gimps.
Little girls. Embarrassing.
What a club is all about, innit?
A little togetherness, a bit of harmony
a bit of unity.
That's what it's all about.
Everybody chipping in,
getting the pitch ready, get a session on.
Get three points,
and we're looking rosy again.
I'm sick of saying that.
"Three points against this team."
I wanna stop saying it.
Then we might get three.
Just a normal day training!
Big fella, what's happening?
They're desperate to get on grass
to train that's what it is. So you can see
we've got the team helping out
to get training on.
Have a nice workout? What's the matter?
They keep snowballing you?
This is brilliant.
Fair play to everybody. Fantastic.
It's pointless clearing
the training ground's pitch.
It'll come down again.
We've got some shelter here
'cause of the way the pitch is
and the way the stadium is built.
This is the last snow for lunchtime.
We can get on here at lunchtime.
We needed to get on grass, didn't we?
So, everyone has pulled together.
Collective team spirit,
which is what you need.
The stakes for this transfer window
keep getting bigger.
We're not in a promotion battle.
We're in a survival battle.
Unlike previous transfer windows
of the past
where maybe the club bought themselves
out of trouble,
the only option we have in this window
is to loan players from other teams.
Seen who's on the wishlist?
Chris Martin, yeah?
Who's that?
Striker from Derby.
That'll be good. We could really use him.
He's good at holding the ball up.
No, no, he is. I'm being serious.
I know you are. I know you are.
But I can't help but think
you're taking the piss.
I'm like, "Is he fucking taking the piss?"
Firstly, talking about loan signings,
are you any further down the road?
Yeah, we are.
We're quite far down the line
with a player, an A club.
Hoping.
We'll have to wait and see,
but it'll be nice to have a fresh face in
to help the lads out
and give us a bit of a boost.
Would the first one, in a sense,
be a catalyst as well,
a signal to other clubs
players are prepared to come here?
Yep, I think it's fair to say that.
In an ideal world, I would like to have
somebody in place for our next game,
and I know time is not on our side.
Hi, Alex.
-How are you?
-Good. You?
-Not bad. Thank you.
-Good.
What's happening? Yeah?
I think he would like the weekend
to discuss it with his family
before coming up. He doesn't want to
If he's gonna come up,
he wants to come, and that be that.
-Do you know what I mean?
-Yeah.
He's spoke with Chris.
He doesn't need to see the training ground
or the stadium.
That's not him being flippant
or blasé with that.
He's 29 years of age.
He just needs
to discuss it with the family.
If he comes up, he wants to come
with every intention of signing,
rather than coming up, leaving,
then thinking about it.
You know what I mean?
Doing it that way round?
No problem.
I take it he's still keen to come.
He is. He just needs
to get his head around it all.
Just give us the weekend
if you don't mind, please.
Right, okay.
All right, thanks very much.
Cheers, Alex. See you.
-Bye bye.
-Take care.
Bloody hell!
You work all day, all night.
You got a medical lined up
for this evening.
Think the player is coming.
This is what I'm up against at the moment.
When you are where you are in the league,
honestly, trying to get players
is just horrendous.
Now, you're sitting and waiting to see
whether you have a striker
who wants to come or not.
And if he says no over the weekend,
you're back to square one again,
having spent three or four days
negotiating back and forth.
And it's all about two things.
It's about where the club is at,
and its position in the Championship,
and fundamentally where people think
we might end up,
and it's about having no money.
And all that does is the fact that
we'll get no striker for tomorrow's game.
Obviously, he's not gonna be signed
in time for tomorrow's game.
I spoke to Martin Bain earlier
on the way in.
I said, "Have you got anyone lined up?"
Because of the position we are in,
players don't really want to come up here.
And if they are, they cost too much money.
Fucking hell!
This is where we are at the moment,
a position where it is sticking plasters.
It's what you can cobble together
on a Saturday afternoon.
What 11 can you put out?
What goalkeeper is confident
at the moment?
Which defender is fit?
Which midfielders actually
can do a job here?
Which midfielder is gonna give us
some consistency?
Who's gonna play out front
and score goals?
There's a myriad number of problems.
Sunderland offloaded two strikers
since the transfer window opened,
leading scorer, Lewis Grabban,
who's hit 12 this season,
and James Vaughan, who left for Wigan.
Nineteen-year-old, Josh Maja,
leads the line
with a big responsibility
on his shoulders.
Sunderland have hit trouble
and need to react
before a bump in the road
becomes a sink hole.
Hopefully, we see a better performance.
The issue is we're not attacking.
We're still struggling
in a lot of key positions.
Ultimately, I just wanna see
a team that looks to go out there
and win for Sunderland.
From Chris Coleman's point of view,
he's looked at this football club.
It's a huge football club.
If he can steady the ship,
come the summer,
he can build on it from there.
Because his reputation is sky-high.
We're underway. And immediately,
a break down the right-hand side.
Get on with it!
Ought to be a foul!
We're in the last run of the season.
We're in the bottom three.
We're up against a team
who are in the bottom three with us.
We decide to go missing for an hour.
I'm pretty angry about that.
What we needed to do was make sure
we defended our own little patch,
which we didn't.
Then to make that worse,
the third goal was even worse.
A huge disappointment
and worrying as well.
-Fucking shit, mate!
-Fucking shit!
-Horrendous!
-Fucking shit!
Shite!
-Fucking shit!
-Embarrassing!
It was shit!
We need to start scoring goals
and get a team in.
The owner needs to put money in the club.
If they don't get money in the club,
we're not gonna get nowt.
That's all I'm gonna say. That's it.
Over 1,000 Sunderland supports
went to Birmingham last night.
Do the club realize what's going on here,
what it means to the people in Sunderland?
Or do they think
we just couldn't care less?
'Cause we do care about the players.
That's why we turn up every week,
week in, week out.
And it upsets people. Spoils your weekend.
I very rarely read the Sunday paper.
There wasn't even a match report
in the Daily Mail on Monday.
Not a line! Tory bastards!
Crying out for a goalkeeper.
Absolutely crying out for a goalkeeper,
a couple of strikers.
However, we've got a multi-billionaire
owner who isn't interested.
This is a massive problem.
We've got a top-quality coach
in Chris Coleman.
And you bring him in,
and you don't back him?
It's criminal, man.
Ellis Short has come here,
taken a mid-table Premier League club,
and we're practically in League 1 now.
I'm realistic enough to know
that the club needs investment
in the squad.
And ultimately,
football these days is about money.
Does the club need money at the moment
to get out of the bottom three?
Yeah, it does.
-Afternoon.
-Good afternoon.
Financially, we are where we are.
We're in hard times now.
Little bit of adversity,
but still a part of the big club.
The problem is when you're at a big club,
and it's going wrong,
it can be a lot tougher.
The culture of the club has been
owner-funded for a number of years.
The culture of the club has
to change dramatically,
because there is no longer an owner
that wishes to fund.
Now, the strategy
for Sunderland going forward is
it has to be self-reliant,
or self-sustainable,
and that is a massive sea change
for any football club,
let alone this one.
Am I sitting here, moaning about it? No.
Does it make life very difficult? Yeah.
Is it sleepless nights?
Is it your head's on the pillow,
and all you're thinking about is
who's playing right back?
Yeah, 100 percent.
Ultimately,
things can't really get any worse,
and we know
that we have to improve that squad.
How do you do that
with having no budget to work with?
It's not gonna be easy.
I'd really like you to film this, right,
and tell Ellis Short to fuck off.
Are you watching, Ellis Short?
You are killing our club!
Fuck you!
Chris Coleman needs backing.
We can't go on the way we are.
Put this in. Ellis Short, fuck off!
Wise Men Say, all things Sunderland.
Ellis Short has lost interest.
We can all see that.
Chris Coleman won't get any more money.
Part of that is 'cause there's still
so much money tied up in the wage bill.
I wanna talk
about Jack Rodwell straight away.
When somebody's earning £12 million
in a few years
If he was to leave now,
we could use his wages
to bring in maybe four players
on free transfers.
When a club
and people's livelihoods are in danger,
at what point can he say,
"Let's call it a day."
-Get rid of him?
-This shows the modern football's madness.
A player like Jack, earning millions,
doesn't seem to have any incentive
to even get out there on the grass.
Yet he still picks up his wages
week in and week out.
Do the players realize
what all this is about?
Do they honestly care
about their supporters?
Jack Rodwell, in a way,
is all that's wrong with football.
It's not necessarily Jack Rodwell's fault.
When Sunderland were
in the Premier League,
signed him from Manchester City.
Agreed to a five-year deal.
You won't turn down the offer
of a five-year contract at £60,000 a week.
When the team was relegated,
he was the one player
who didn't have the clause in his contract
which meant he took a pay cut.
Three caps for England.
He's gone to Sunderland.
The appearances have just declined,
and he's done an article today
saying he wants to play football.
He's got 18 months left,
but there's talk of the club wanting
to terminate his contract.
I've had a chat with Jack,
and I've said to Jack,
"Be a man. You're 26 years of age.
Go and kick-start your career.
Tell me it's about playing football
or money. Which is it?"
Jack said it's about playing football.
But look around you.
Look at the state the club is in.
Maybe go play football somewhere else.
I wasn't going to ask you
about Jack Rodwell today,
because you've spoken about him
in the past.
Then we see the interview he did this week
with quotes that raised eyebrows,
talking about his ambitions,
wanting to play in the Premier League,
get back on the England squad, et cetera.
There was a certain body of opinion
that thought,
"If you have that attitude, and you say
you're as fit as you've ever been,
why not try and show it on the pitch
and try and get into the Sunderland team?
That's the best way
to kick-start your career again."
Well, yeah,
I don't know what to add to that,
because that's my opinion, exactly that.
As of yet, he hasn't got another club.
He's still here.
So, we have to wait and see.
I thought you were going to be playing
at the weekend.
No chance, mate.
Radio for the North East.
It's transfer deadline day.
So, it's finally arrived.
We'll keep you across
all the deals of the day.
Today is gonna be a long day.
This is the final date
that football clubs can sign players
or let players leave the club,
go on their own type of thing.
And you've got until
eleven o'clock tonight, the cutoff point.
And although eleven o'clock seems
like a long time tonight,
when you've got negotiations,
getting the paperwork right,
that time can go like that
when it's a bit of a scramble.
We need two attackers,
attacker, midfielder,
wide attacker, striker,
possibly two strikers.
There's a big list of players
that the club already had tracking,
but also, we've come in
with our own ideas.
They've got to be the right personality
and characters.
That's hugely important
to the way that Chris works,
and we work together.
We're on the verge of
We've agreed everything
to sign a midfielder from Liverpool.
He'll help us score more goals.
We're just waiting on that phone call
for that to drop.
And if it does,
it'll be a positive signing for us.
I just hope that it falls into place.
This moment in time, I think this is
the toughest job in British football.
This has been a frustrating January
for us, and the situation we're in
with regards to having
to look at loan players,
and being reliant
on one or two players going out the door
to generate some cash.
It's a difficult set of circumstances
we're working with.
We've not generated that cash.
Still cannot get rid of Rodwell.
He's literally robbing us blind.
-He's just in his office.
-His office?
To be honest, he's pathetic.
Honestly, he's just sitting
on his backside, doing nothing,
getting What is it?
Seventy thousand in a week?
You know, give the club a break, man.
He knows
what financial difficulties we're in.
If he was to move on today
and rip up his contract,
he can obviously sign for anybody,
after the deadline as a free agent.
He's got a big decision to make.
It's a big decision for the football club.
I hope he doesn't
just consider his own interests,
and I hope he puts
Sunderland Football Club up there
in his decision making as well.
It's a bit personal, isn't it?
Time is running out
for clubs to make any last-minute buys.
It's deadline day.
Because Jack Rodwell hasn't made
a decision about his future yet,
we have to get rid of a few players
to allow us
to bring in ones we urgently need.
Didier is gone. He's joined Watford
on loan until the end of the season.
So, good player. Good luck to him as well.
You take care, all right?
All the best with the baby.
Well, Lee Camp from Cardiff, goalkeeper.
We needed a certain type of character,
we felt,
and Lee ticked the  boxes.
He'll be here tomorrow, Lee.
To bring a keeper in who we've heard of
is half-decent. It's a bonus.
Ovie Ejaria, he's a midfielder
from Liverpool.
It'll only be a loan deal
for the rest of the season.
They call him the English Pogba.
Brilliant!
And that man, Lewis Grabban,
it wouldn't be a deadline day
without talk about him.
He's now joining his 11th club
as a professional.
He's signed for Aston Villa,
on loan, for the rest of the season.
He's gonna challenge you
for the title of Mr. Deadline Day. Jim?
Top man.
I'm gonna end up in tears.
If we don't get a good striker,
I will be sobbing my heart out.
The last minute, we'll get a striker.
If we get that Ashley Fletcher,
I'll be over the moon then.
Nice to meet you.
I know Ash from West Ham.
Really good lad.
Got so much praise
in terms of what he's like as a character.
Anyone you ever come across
in football know
people who have come through the ranks
at Man United are just good people.
Come on in.
-How you doing?
-Ashley, I'm Martin. How are you?
-Nice to see you.
-Nice to meet you.
Big man.
How are you, son? You're good?
How are you? You all right?
Thank you.
-Well done.
-Thank you very much.
Ashley Fletcher.
That's made my night anyway.
New player!
I'm delighted we got this boy.
Good age, 22.
Learning experience for him.
I think it's a great day, really good day.
Turned out to not be a really good window,
because that's five now.
Players we've got out
and players we've got in.
It's not cost us anything,
'cause obviously, the wages
Financially, it's been good for us,
and definitely improved the environment,
because these boys are coming
because they wanna come here.
And obviously,
the ones going the other way,
the majority don't wanna be here.
The numbers are coming with moi.
Just busy making sure
there's nothing being left behind.
It's kind of like grave jumping, really.
Somebody leaves, and then
you're putting a name up straight away.
But that's how it goes.
See you guys.
Now, it's done.
Thank god it's done. Christ!
Fuck me.
Fuck!
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