The Jayden Danns loan signing at Sunderland AFC is a bizarre one. Why does a Championship club sign a player when he didn’t pass his medical?
Or worse, complete the paperwork and get the deal done before realising he has an underlying back injury?
The mad rush on January transfer deadline day could go some way to explaining it. This situation is an example of why clubs should get their business done earlier in the window.
Danns played four times for Liverpool in the first half of the season under Arne Slot, despite missing the first three months of the campaign with an injury.
His future was then the source of great interest in January amid interest from several Championship clubs. Sunderland were entrusted with his development and fair play to the club for managing to attract such a talent. But talent is no good sitting on the sidelines and the transfer has turned out to be a bit of an embarrassment for the Black Cats.
The fact Danns hasn’t played so far is not a good look whichever view you take.
We are now hearing he might be ready in a month. By which time the club’s tilt at automatic promotion might well have disappeared. Had he been available from the moment he signed, who knows what impact he would have made. Results may have been different.
But this is not a unique situation when it comes to Liverpool loaning out younger players. It was a year ago that another youngster, seemingly destined for a good career, was sent out on loan by The Reds. That player was Rhys Williams, a bright prospect and a central defender given plenty of game time under Jurgen Klopp.
READ MORE: How much Sunderland will pay for Jayden Danns revealed
Last January, Williams moved to Port Vale, then in League One. He said at the time: “I can’t wait to get on the pitch. I’m good aerially, through my size I’m quite dominant, I’m calm on the ball and I like to think of myself as loud on the pitch as talking goes a long way.”
It’s a pity that he didn’t speak out about not being fit.
Having signed for Vale he didn’t kick a ball and on February 1, the club announced that Williams had returned to Liverpool. Vale’s statement included the line ‘following the emergence of an underlying injury issue, Rhys Williams has returned to Liverpool to continue his rehabilitation for the remainder of the season’.
Liverpool simply said: “Rhys Williams has returned to Liverpool after his loan spell with Port Vale was ended early due to an injury.”
Williams had been at Aberdeen in Scotland for the first half of the 2023/24 season, and not played a single minute for them either.
Here we are 12 months on and Danns has been loaned out by The Reds and he too is said to have had, and still has, an underlying injury issue. Coincidence? Possibly, but something isn’t quite right for lightning to strike twice.
Will Danns play for Sunderland? If he doesn’t it will go down as one of the most disappointing signings in the club’s recent history.
Hopefully he recovers and can play a part in Sunderland’s battle for promotion, most likely via the play-offs.
The wider problem for the Black Cats is they now have their two loan signings from the January transfer window sidelined, given the injury to Enzo Le Fee. The other signing, Wilson Isidor, was already at the club so in that respect it, a month on, Sunderland, right now, are no better off than they were before the transfer window opened.
View news Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/sunderlands-jayden-danns-transfer-woe-31109176
