Is There A Chance?

By: Tony Hamilton
Date: 25/02/2003

TODAY it was revealed that Sunderland wish to offload John Oster and a price of £75,000 has been mentioned by sources at Sunderland. It is revealed that Oster is out of favour with Howard Wilkinson, and Sunderland wishing to get Oster's wages off their large wage bill.

Paul Groves told the Grimsby Telegraph; "I don't think I'd be doing my job properly if, in some shape or another, I didn't try and keep him. "Whether we can buy him is another matter but I'd like to keep him and I think the fans would like to keep him here. People have already told me in the street that they've enjoyed watching him play and that we need to keep him. They want to see him stay."

"We can only have him for this month unless we manage to buy him. My job is to try and build a team that people want to come and watch. We have to entertain them and John has that ability to excite people and get the crowd going. He can unlock defences and he's the right age at 23."

"He's got proven quality and it isn't a risk from that point of view. He's the type of player we want to keep."

And Groves believes that if Town can find the cash to buy Oster they will take a major step towards winning their battle against the drop.

"If we keep him it will go a long way towards helping us achieve our goal of staying in the first division. When he was here before he hit five goals in 10 games and ended up virtually top scorer. He can create chances for others as well. His ability is unquestionable."

Oster was sold to Everton for £1.5 million then was sold onto Sunderland for £1 million

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