Friday 12 September 2014 06:39, UK
Sunderland manager Gus Poyet concedes he is not happy with the club's business in the summer transfer market.
Poyet and Sunderland sporting director Lee Congerton brought in nine new players to the Stadium of Light before the September 1st deadline.
However, the recruitment drive was not an unqualified success, with Marcos Alonso and Fabio Borini, who performed so well on loan for the Black Cats last season, among the ones who got away.
And Poyet revealed that he was not satisfied with the club’s efforts to strengthen.
Poyet said: "It's very easy to say that I'm happy because then everybody will be delighted with my words. But at the same time, I am not happy. I am all right.
"We were expecting to have a certain number of players. We were very close to doing a couple of very important things; we didn't do it. Then we changed slightly and we got different players.
"We tried. We tried our best and what we got was the best we could do. I don't want really to reflect on how it went because it's not fair."
Borini's return was one of the major focuses for Poyet and despite being encouraged throughout the summer, the deal did not come off as the 23-year-old stayed at Liverpool despite approaches from Sunderland and QPR.
The Italian played much of his football for Sunderland last season wide on the left side of midfield, and while Alvarez is likely to occupy that berth this time around, Poyet insists he is not a direct replacement.
Poyet said: "People will think that Ricky Alvarez is the substitute for Borini, but for me he is not. There are different opinions - I don't think they are right or wrong, they are just different opinions.
"Ricky is a player who is exciting on the ball and is going to create things on his own, but he's not a top scorer. So either we make him a top scorer and then we can say one is a replacement for the other one...
"I think it's unfair on both players, on Ricky and on Fabio. Of course, he is going to play in the position where Fabio was playing last year - I don't know exactly if he is going to be there all the time on the left.
"He can play in that position, but that doesn't mean he is a natural substitute for Fabio Borini."
