Sunderland AFC: £4m striker signing dubbed "a total disaster" | OneFootball

FLW's Black Cats' fan pundit is still shocked by the club's decision to sign Will Grigg for big money over five years ago

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Sunderland's decision to spend £4m to sign experienced striker Will Grigg in January 2019 has been identified as one that still shocks their fans to this day due to his failure to live up to his price tag at the Stadium of Light.

Grigg became well-known in football for his chant during Euro 2016 while playing for Wigan Athletic, and his previous form in League One for numerous clubs saw the Black Cats shell out a reported £4m on his services while they were in the midst of their first season in the third tier of English football since 1987 after successive relegations.

That fee was the highest transfer fee ever paid by an English third-division club at the time, but he failed to ever adapt to life in the North East in a turbulent time at the club and eventually left on a free transfer in 2022 after two loan spells away.

Fan pundit still shocked by decision to sign Grigg for hefty fee

Grigg had netted regularly at third-tier level for multiple clubs, including Walsall, MK Dons and Wigan, and so many saw Sunderland signing him as a smart one as he entered his prime at 27-years-old, but a lot of money for a player that had to deliver instant success.

Instead, he never truly found his feet at the Stadium of Light, and bagged five goals in 22 appearances in his first season, then three in 27 games in his second campaign as the Black Cats struggled to get out of League One.

As a result of his forgettable spell, FLW's Sunderland fan pundit, Eddy Bamber, recalled his signing when we asked him for a decision made by the club that still shocks him to this day.

He said: "The decision to sign Will Grigg for four million pounds still leaves me baffled.

"Bear in mind, this was in League One in 2019. In today’s money that’s an extra few million quid.

"It was off the back of Josh Maja deciding he wanted to leave, and he had forced the club’s hand into selling him in January just so they could make around one-and-a-half million pounds.

"In hindsight, it would have been better to have just kept him until that summer and let him go on a free transfer. He would have scored more goals than Grigg and that might have got us over the line.

"As for the decision itself to sign Grigg, it just showed that the owner was well in over his head.

"He didn’t know what he was doing, and, after the release of the Sunderland 'Til I Die documentary on Netflix we got the added context, which showed that perhaps he may have done it for the cameras.

"He might have been trying to show a bit of bravado and let his ego get in the way.

"He also wanted to make a quick buck so, to sign Will Grigg for £4m, as ridiculous as that is, if it had got us over the line he could have sold the club for twice as much money as he bought it for.

"That wasn’t the case. Grigg didn’t want to be here, and the fans didn’t want him.

"It was a total disaster. Quite literally four million pounds down the drain."

Will Grigg admitted that he struggled at Sunderland

Grigg never settled at Sunderland, and that probably came as no surprise given he was seemingly caught well off guard by the move and had not expected to leave Wigan so late in the January window.

Just 18 months after his big-money move, the Northern Ireland international admitted that he "probably should not have moved" to the North East club, and then revealed more about his struggles in an interview while on loan at Rotherham United a year later.

"If I could put my finger on it, I would have changed it and made it work a long time ago," he told the Sunderland Echo.

"It is just one of things. I signed last minute and we lost in the play-off final and it did not quite happen then and then there were a few different managers and styles and it just didn't work for whatever reason.

"It is just football and life in general. It just didn't work and it seems like it was never going to.

"Sunderland did not work out how everyone expected. It is one of those things."

The striker has largely struggled for form in the third tier since his Sunderland departure, but found his feet at Chesterfield as he bagged 24 goals in 38 National League appearances in 2023/24 to fire the Spireites back to League Two.

He is not fondly remembered for his time at the Stadium of Light though, and both Sunderland and Grigg himself will have serious regrets over how the move panned out.