Sunderland had a shocker with Turner

Sunderland have had their justifiable share of howlers within the switch market over time by overpaying for gamers who went on to fail on Wearside.

The likes of Didier Ndong and Jack Rodwell are names that immediately spring to thoughts and there have been loads of different examples within the twenty first century.

One participant the membership had a shocker with from a monetary perspective was central defender Michael Turner, who joined the Black Cats from Hull in 2009.

There’s some controversy over precisely how a lot Sunderland paid to signal the defender, who put pen to paper on a four-year contract on the Stadium of Gentle.

The Every day Mail claimed that the payment was £6.5m, while The Guardian initially reported that it was within the area of £12m. Giving the membership the advantage of the doubt, we’ll assume that it was the previous on this case.

Was Turner a poor signing?

Steve Bruce hailed the Englishman’s expertise on the time of the transfer, saying: “I consider that Michael is without doubt one of the nation’s premier central defenders. I’ve been trying so as to add measurement and power to the again line and Michael matches the invoice completely in that respect, in addition to being a superb technical footballer.”

Turner loved a strong first season on Wearside as he began 29 Premier League matches and averaged a WhoScored rating of 7.09 for the Black Cats, which positioned him 8th within the squad.

Nevertheless, he then struggled to maintain up with the excessive customary that he set as he performed 39 top-flight matches and did not common a score higher than 6.89 within the following two campaigns.

By way of WhoScored rankings, he ranked 16th and ninth in his last two seasons on the Stadium of Gentle in 2010/11 and 2011/12 respectively.

These statistics recommend that he was removed from being one of many membership’s finest gamers throughout his three-year spell and the Black Cats opted to money in on him in the summertime of 2012 after his failure to kick on from his debut marketing campaign.

Sunderland offered him to fellow Premier League facet Norwich Metropolis for a reported payment within the area of £1.5m, taking a sizeable hit on the preliminary £6.5m they paid for him.

Turner was 28 on the time of the transfer and nonetheless had loads of years left to offer, which means that the membership didn’t really feel he was on the required stage for them anymore.

Subsequently, Bruce had a shocker with the central defender because it harm Sunderland from a monetary perspective. They spent a internet quantity of £5m on him for one good 12 months of service and two common, at finest, seasons. That definitely means that the signing was not a hit from an on-pitch or off-pitch standpoint.