Diouf issues ultimatum to new Sunderland boss

Jan 5 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

EL-HADJI Diouf will ask Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia to play him or sell him when they meet for talks about the winger’s future.

Diouf made only his second start for Sunderland since October in Saturday’s 2-1 FA Cup third round win over his old club Bolton Wanderers. Despite also having missed large amounts of training in December through personal problems, the 27-year-old put in a man-of-the-match display to set up a forth-round meeting with either Blyth Spartans or Blackburn.

But afterwards Diouf revealed he is seeking talks with Sbragia to discover

if he has a future on Wearside. “I have had a brief chat with Ricky, but I want to have a longer conversation with him and I’m just waiting to see what happens next,” he admitted.

“Maybe I will go, maybe I will stay. If I get more time on the pitch and am picked for more games, why shouldn’t I stay? I would want to stay if that happened. But if I am not playing and the manager doesn’t need me, I would want to go.

“I need to have a proper chat with Ricky and find out what his plans for me are. I need to see what he imagines me doing in the second half of the season. The bottom line is I want to play. I know Ricky very well because we worked together at Bolton as well. I feel I can tell him exactly what I want, and hopefully he’ll feel he can tell me exactly what he wants. I’m sure he will feel like he can tell me whether he needs me or not.”

Diouf and defender Pascal Chimbonda fell out of favour with previous manager Roy Keane and had not figured since Sbragia’s first match in caretaker charge, against Manchester United. But both faced Bolton, making them ineligible to play for anyone else in this season’s FA Cup and backing up Sbragia’s public assertion that their futures are at Sunderland. Diouf remains cautious, however. “I don’t know how important Ricky thinks I am,” he said. “I played against Bolton, but I have still only been playing a little bit in recent weeks. People who know me, know what I want. I want to enjoy my football and I can’t really do that if I am not playing. I want to play every week. We’ll see what happens against Middlesbrough (on Saturday).”

Sbragia, who left out Steed Malbranque and Phil Bardsley at the weekend because they are a booking away from a suspension, explained why Diouf has featured so little recently. “His wife had a baby and we gave him time off because there was slight problems,” he said. “It’s just getting him back into the fitness side again. This week he’s been absolutely excellent. I would think he felt he had a point to prove, maybe to me as well.” Diouf has been linked with Blackburn Rovers and Bolton, but Trotters skipper Kevin Nolan is more interested in seeing his former team-mate do well for Sunderland.

“I hope he goes on to be very successful,” said Nolan.

Meanwhile, Sbragia is confident the ankle injury which forced Kieran Richardson off against Bolton is not serious.