Martin, Andrew and Bomber got together on Monday morning to record this pod – and, of course, as we hung up our mics the news of Granit Xhaka's imminent arrival at the club broke. But there's still a lot of good stuff to get stuck into in this one ahead of the Hull game tonight!

• Who's impressed for Sunderland during pre season, and who's really staking a claim for a starting position?
• Legitimate concerns in attack and defence?
• How important it it that someone like Xhaka arrives in terms of experience?
• What's a realistic expectation for the season – and how patient do we all need to be?!
• Does our pre-season really start tonight – or will we see a much changed team with the real action starting on Saturday against Betis?

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Martin's back in the hotseat this week, trying to keep Chris, Kelvin and Andrew in check as we take another walk through the history of Sunderland AFC. On today's agenda...

• The Stadium of Light hosts its first game – what were the lads memories of that move and the opening day at the SOL?
• During this week in our history, Alan Brown joined and left the club. Kelvin looks back on the career of a man who was famed for his discipline, but had a kind heart, too.
• Find out why Bobby Kerr has never worn a pair of jeans!
• We've launched new kits recently – but new shirts don't always go down well. Andrew takes us back to the early 80s, and Le Coq Sportif's launch of our most controversial home kit ever.
• Plus, our most successful goalscoring loanees, Peter Beagrie riding motorbikes and all sorts of other football crack.

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Sunderland comprehensively lost to Hearts in Craig Gordon's testimonial up at Hearts. While our games in the Algarve came with a number of positives, there weren't many to take from this 90 minutes! Here's what's on the agenda today.

• We were terribly sloppy at the back – how much of a worry is that with the season three weeks away?
• Dan Neil started... did he do anything to stake a claim for a starting place?
• How concerning is our lack of goal threat?
• Is Niall Huggins doing enough to stake a claim? And where was Reinaldo?
• Hearts are already in competitive action, and their robust performance underlined that. Is it a mitigating factor?

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Sunderland head north to Edinburgh today to take on Hearts of Midlothian, a game to commemorate the career of Craig Gordon — and there’s lots to talk about, so the Lads got together for a chinwag ahead of this afternoon’s festivities!

• Will Craig Gordon be fit enough to play in today’s game?!
• Are we excited about potentially getting to see Reinildo for the first time?
• Chris Rigg and Anthony Patterson may also feature...
• How will Régis Le Bris approach this game in terms of who plays, and for how long?
• What do we want to get out of this particular game, especially given Hearts are much further ahead than we are in their preparations for the new season?

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Lots has changed since we last spoke to Scott Wilson before the Playoff Semi Final with Coventry, so we thought we'd catch up with the man who covers Sunderland for the Northern Echo and to grab his thoughts on how the club's summer preparations are going ahead of the new season!

• How does Sunderland's summer compare to others that Scott has covered for promoted clubs?
• Are high-profile transfer deals playing out in public just part of the world we now find ourselves in?
• How is Sunderland's squad shaping up - and where do we expect to see futher big money additions?

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Oh no - for the very first time, the Lads get together to do a top ten that features the worst of something - and this time, it’s a nice follow up to our last Top Ten Podcast as we chat about Sunderland’s worst foreign imports! To qualify, players must have featured in at least ten games, which helped us whittle down the list slightly. However, there were still dozens of players who could have been on this shortlist, making it difficult to settle on just ten.

• The dishonourable mentions - which former Sunderland players can count themselves as lucky to have not made this list?
• The players who didn’t quite play enough to qualify - Nunez, Fredgaard, et al - are discussed...
• Who makes up our shortlist of shite?
• We go from ten up to one and rank who was the worst of the worst - PTSD triggered!

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News has emerged that our club and Granit Xhaka have agreed terms on a deal, and that he “only wants” Sunderland. Whilst bringing in a genuine superstar would be an unbelievable coup for the club, where would this leave Dan Neil, who is in the final year of his contract? Gav, Chris, Andrew and Bomber chat about the potential signing of the Bayer Leverkusen midfielder, the make-up of Sunderland’s Premier League midfield, and what this might mean for our captain...

• News broke on Tuesday that Sunderland were close to agreeing a deal - just how huge would this be for us?
• What does it say about the club’s ambitions that such a highly-regarded player wants to join?
• We chat about the ins and outs of the deal...
• What would this all mean for Dan Neil? Will he sign a new contract, or will the club cash in?

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Sunderland lost against Portuguese champions Sporting Lisbon to close out our mini-tour of the Algarve, but there were plenty of positives to take from our performance and, as such, the Lads got together at full time to react to what they saw.

• The midfield trio of Diarra, Sadiki and Le Fee had us purring - just how good do they look?!
• Our patterns of play are promising when you consider how little these players have played together
• It was a poor goal to concede, but were Sunderland still the best team in that first half?
• When the second string came out they gave a good account of themselves - especially the defence
• What about Dan Neil... is he seen as a starter for that West Ham game?
• Standards are rising, so will last season's players keep up?

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The smell of woodbines are back in the air, so breathe it in and join Chris, Andrew and Kelvin as they take a walk down memory lane to chat about some interesting happenings that happened on this week in the history of Sunderland AFC!

• Responding to letters regarding last week's craic about Cloughie!
• Discussing a pre-season friendly v Nissan FC in 1984...
• Memories of Mel Holden
• Is Eddie Burbanks the forgotten man from 1937?
• Selling Ian Porterfield to Sheffield Wednesday

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More new Sunderland transfer news emerged on Sunday morning, so of course Gav sent out the bat signal and managed to get a couple of Lads to sit and chat about it with him - so joining us on today's show are Andrew Smithson, RR regular and Sunderland historian, and the Sunderland Echo's James Copley!

On today's agenda:

• Sunderland's €20m move for Sassuolo's Armand Laurienté is off - and we can only speculate about the reasons why
• Will we go out and get another of our left wing targets, particularly now Mundle is injured?
• We chat about the other positions that still need strengthening - particularly at centre back
• What's the latest on Granit Xhaka?
• Matty Young looks to be heading back to Salford - is another spell in League Two what's best for him?
• The Lads look ahead to Monday's game against Sporting Lisbon in the Algarve

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