After taking some time away from the game and then watching the 2nd series of Sunderland Till I Die I got the feel for the game again and wanted to do what Sunderland have failed to do so far and get out of League 1.
Sunderland is one of the biggest clubs in the North East of England and have a long time rivalry with Newcastle who they have the Tyne & Wear Derby with. Their other rivals are Middlesbrough who they play in the Wear-Tees Derby. Yes the club play in League One but they still have one of the biggest fan bases in England. With this fan base we will be looking to try and fill The Stadium of Light which has a capacity of 48,707. Trying to get the fans back into the stadium will be needed to bring cash into the club as well.
When the club got relegated at the end of the 2016/17 season to the Championship then everybody thought that the club would bounce back straight away but the unexpected happened and the club suffered a shock back to back relegation's to end up in League 1. Over this time the finances at the club deteriorated as Elis Short stopped bankrolling the club and looked to sell it. Up stepped Stuart Donald who came in to be the white knight and save the club and get it back up the leagues to where the club belongs. Only his first season in charge didn't go to plan as they lost the play-off final to Charlton to stay in League One. With this the fans turned on him over the summer and he has now decided to sell the club.
The club has had a large turnover in players over the summer with reshaping the squad to build a team capable of going back into the Championship and is in a relatively strong position for this but that is about it. There are still a few players who are high earners at the club who haven't been pulling their weight so they will need to be moved on to help the club grow.
Along with a world class stadium they also boast superb training facilities and excellent youth facilities that we will be looking to take advantage of to bring through some excellent youth players.
The club have given us a transfer budget of £1 million and a wage budget of £201,629 to get them promoted.