BETRAYAL?

While not yet a done deal, the weekend’s shock news that Granit Xhaka wants to leave Sunderland for Chelsea looks very ominous.

It has been confirmed that Sunderland have rejected an ‘insulting’ £8m offer for Xhaka but it appears clear the Swiss international wants away.

Considering Xhaka’s end of season comments about being settled at Sunderland and being on the ‘beginning of a journey’, this is a bitter low. Xhaka’s choice to come to Sunderland from Bayer Leverkusen had seemed to indicate this was a man of principle. His tough background of coming from a family of immigrants in a small town seemed to chime with the values of Sunderland. As we should have known though, there’s no place for loyalty and sentiment in the modern game.

Xhaka has been our leader, talisman and best player with his sublime talent – the fact that could be ending in this way is particularly tragic.

The last time we faced a transfer saga of this significance was when Darren Bent walked out on us when we were riding high in the Premiership under Steve Bruce. We never recovered from that and slipped into years of struggle and decline. The challenge is to make sure that doesn’t happen again. If Xhaka goes, there is a danger of a player exodus with Mukiele already having been heavily tipped to join him with ex Leverkusen coach Alonso at Chelsea.

On the plus side. We are in a club in very good hands. Ghisolfi has proved himself a master at building a side of real quality and unearthing hidden gems in Europe. The difficulty will be in replacing someone with Xhaka’s stature and leadership quality, however. Jordan Henderson is the name that immediately springs to mind.