One man's peanuts are another man's spree

A YEAR ON THE WEAR:Roy Keane's spending on players has to be taken into its proper context especially when dealing with a club like Sunderland

PEANUTS AND Jesus. If you had the time, or the inclination, to trawl through Roy Keane's vocabulary and the most regular usage of particular words and phrases, then "peanuts" and "Jesus" would surely be top-five contenders. Jesus usually comes along as in: "The FAI? Jeee-sus." For peanuts it is always: "Kieran Richardson? Five million? You call that big money? It's peanuts. Jesus."

Keane was at it again yesterday. Money and salvation have been Sunderland's topics of the week, the fortnight, and if Keane's economic views had a softer tone than in midweek in Dublin when the "40 to 50 million" remark about summer spending came across as a demand, he was still on about recruitment. Referring to his chief scout, Mick Brown, hired from Manchester United after many years' service, Keane said: "You're not going to get an experienced man travelling around Europe for peanuts." Not even dry roasted? - no one asked.

It was no moment for sarcasm, after all. Keane was discussing infrastructure at a club that was financially wrecked until Niall Quinn led Drumaville into this Wearside world less than two years ago. Sunderland had scouts then, too, of course, just not as many, not as far afield and, presumably, not as well-remunerated.

There were legions of footballers not seen by Sunderland because of this but then many of them were not worth watching as they were simply too expensive. Mick McCarthy's largest purchase at the Stadium of Light was Jon Stead - £1.8 million (€2.3m) from Blackburn Rovers. Now Brown and Co are flying round the continent trying to identify players who in later years Keane will refer to as costing peanuts.

The wider world will acknowledge that in the scheme of English and European football, Keane is correct and that these players will be relatively cheap when, for example, set aside the £30 million (€38m) Manchester United paid Leeds for Rio Ferdinand when Keane was at Old Trafford.

But in the narrower world of Wearside, there will be recognition that, actually, cheapness is a comparative concept, not a fact. On the day United signed Ferdinand, Sunderland's record transfer fee was the £4.5 million (€5.7m) that was sent Rangers' way for Claudio Reyna. For two clubs in the same division, Sunderland and United were revealed to be a league apart. And, funnily enough, soon would be.

Sunderland soon broke their record with the £6.75 million (€8.5m) paid (again to Rangers) for Tore Andre Flo, but that remained a club high-mark for five years. Those five years took in McCarthy and the likes of Stead and Kelvin Davis. It is a long time in the fast world of professional sport.

Thus, when Keane was spending the promotion money last summer, there was, if not shock, an outbreak of gasping that Sunderland could suddenly be on what Keane would never call a spree, but which locals would.

The Flo record was broken by the £9 million (€11.4m) paid to Hearts for Craig Gordon, but the smaller millions paid for the likes of Paul McShane, Greg Halford and Russell Anderson - £6 million-ish for the trio - also mattered at a club where McCarthy's poverty was fresh in the mind and where less than a decade ago Lee Clark was still the record signing at £2.5 million (€3.1m) from neighbours Newcastle. Less than 12 years ago Sunderland had never paid one million for any player, not until Alex Rae arrived from Millwall.

Rae's transfer came nearly two decades after Trevor Francis left Birmingham for Nottingham Forest for the fabled million. What this shows is a pattern of under-investment which, considering Sunderland were known once as the Bank of England club such was their wealth, is perhaps surprising.

But it is a reality. It is one that Keane is challenging and whether or not you regard Kieran Richardson or Michael Chopra as costing "peanuts", Sunderland are better for his driving of their ambition.

Quite rightly, there is a reluctance to discuss this summer in detail until Premier League safety is assured - a point or three at Fulham today would be a significant help in that - but even then the question about what survival would mean to Sunderland tends to get answered by headlines that tell very little about the day-to-day economics of running a club.

If we say that promotion last season meant £30 million to Sunderland and that staying up would mean the same again, suddenly a £60 million (€76m) headline figure appears. Suddenly Sunderland are rich.

But that ignores that Sunderland earmarked for spending - it is not all spent at once - £38 million (€48m) last summer on players.

Those are transfer fees but when wages are included - and Keane did acknowledge the effect of wages yesterday - the same amount again, spread over three-four years, can be estimated and included. Suddenly Sunderland do not look quite so rich.

A good word for the process is upgrade. Sunderland's rise from bottom of the Championship to a potential second consecutive season in the Premier League means that they can upgrade as a club in terms of players and everything else. But they can't cash in their ticket and there is little sense that anyone is getting rich off the back of it - players and agents apart - because incomings are always reinvested.

Niall Quinn tends to get worked up about journalists' inability to understand football's economy and whether a player's cost is peanuts or not. When his frustration subsides, Quinn consoles himself with the knowledge that what he, Keane and Drumaville have done, and are hoping to continue to do, is "awaken a club and a city, make it feel alive again".

That is a laudable ambition, if not a priceless one, and at least the money generated and spent is creating, so far, an upward cycle.

"The wider world will acknowledge that in the scheme of

English and European football, Keane is correct and that these players will be relatively cheap when, for example, set aside the £30 million Manchester United paid Leeds for Rio Ferdinand when Keane was at Old Trafford