Sunderland have tied down the services of Andrew Nelson for another season before the 20-year-old was sent out on loan to Scottish Championship side, Falkirk. He is a product of the Sunderland youth academy and has served the past season out on loan to Hartlepool United and Harrogate Town. A striker by trade Nelson has made just 4 senior team appearances for the Monkey Hangers and is eager to find himself more first-team football.
Falkirk are at the 9th spot of the points table and have plans of earning promotion to the Premiership in the near future. Club head coach, Paul Hartley was quoted, “I am really pleased to get both Sean and Andrew signed. Sean has spent a few weeks with us now and, in that time, we have been able to see the quality he has. He has been captain of a Premiership club and brings with him some valuable experience.”
“I first watched Andrew in an under-23s match a few weeks ago and he impressed me that night. He’s trained with us over the past few days and I think he will be a good fit for the group we have here. We have been working towards this for a few weeks now. We have always said that we wanted to get two or three bodies in early to help the group. Having Sean, Andrew and Tommy Robson signed up ahead of this afternoon’s match is a real boost.”
Sunderland needs all the help they can get currently stranded at the bottom of the Championship. All of Chris Coleman’s January targets have failed to materialise and the former Wales manager is scouring the transfer market to sign attacking threats before the end of the month.
A second relegation in a successive season and a steep drop to the lower divisions is not something any fan would like to witness and it looks like the Black Cats are headed towards the doomed path. With a lack of resources to successfully sign proven talents, Coleman has had to work around the very limited resources he has been provided.
If you have followed the career of Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, the first thing he did was start playing close attention to the youth squad and providing academy players with the opportunity to flourish in the senior team. A club’s greatest asset should be the players coming out of their academy and Nelson’s developments is a highly necessary to secure a future – any future in the top divisions of English football.
