Chopra won’t get easy exit
Jan 1 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
SUNDERLAND look set to price Michael Chopra out of the transfer he was hoping to make this month.
But they have given Preston North End encouragement in their bid to keep Ross Wallace at Deepdale after the on-loan Scot was allowed to play in this weekend’s FA Cup tie against Liverpool.
Gosforth-born striker Chopra has been on loan at Cardiff City from Sunderland since early November, an arrangement both he and the Bluebirds would like to make permanent. But the clubs are so far apart in their valuations that a return to south Wales looks unlikely.
Chopra moved to the Championship club from hometown club Newcastle United and made an instant impact, scoring 22 goals in 42 league games.
That earned him a £5m move to Sunderland in the summer of 2007 but the former England Under-21 international was never able to make himself a regular part of Roy Keane’s starting line-ups.
Chopra instantly rediscovered his old Cardiff form after returning on a temporary basis, scoring five times in 11 games. But new Black Cats boss Ricky Sbragia has brought the 25-year-old back to Wearside and is refusing to let him leave unless Sunderland get most of their money back.
“Of course we would like to have kept him,” said Cardiff chairman Peter Ridsdale. “It’s not our decision. We always knew if he did well there was always the chance he would go back.
“We can’t buy him. The club (Sunderland) want their money back, around four-and-a-half to five million pounds. No club in the Championship is going to pay that. If you do you’re mad.”
The Black Cats’ bench looked decidedly lightweight in Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at Everton and Sbragia is looking to bring back a number of his on-loan players to decide if any can add quality and depth to his squad in the new year. Goalkeeper Trevor Carson is to return from Chesterfield and striker Roy O’Donovan is back from Dundee United, so the news that Wallace is set to play for Preston at the weekend suggests his Sunderland career may have run its course.
Calling O’Donovan back from Tannadice seems more like an act of mercy than an indication that the former League of Ireland front man will have any serious involvement with the Black Cats in 2009. In 13 matches for the Scottish Premier League outfit, the 23-year-old has managed as many red cards – one – as goals. That is one more than he managed in a debut season at the Stadium of Light where he struggled to make the step-up in class. “It’s not quite worked for Roy up there,” said Sbragia. “It was going well but he got suspended and found it difficult to get back in the team after that. It would have been unfair to leave him up there.”
If, as expected, Wallace plays at the weekend, he will be ineligible for Sunderland’s FA Cup games.
“It’s terrific news,” said Preston manager Alan Irvine.
“We were desperately hoping Ross would be given permission to play and fortunately following a number of discussions which involved the chairman, myself, Ross’s agent, the chief exec and manager at Sunderland, we’ve been given the go-ahead and we are absolutely delighted.
“Fortunately they have decided not to (recall him) and they will continue to monitor Ross for the rest of the month.”
