Ben Thompson was not priceless. Enough money offered and he would have been sold. Look at what happened to his Millwall career (and beyond) afterwards.
Sunderland publicly stated that it cost them £4M a year to attempt to get out of League 1. We can reasonably assume we have been spending the same.
You can add up the £4M or so per year for every season we've been in League 1 since, and compare it to the £2M that would have absolutely bought Ben Thompson (probably 1.5x his market value at the time).
Wasteful policy and we know that the lessons have been learned since, as Tornante stated when they signed Morrell for what was probably 1.5x his market value at the time.
Sunderland publicly stated that it cost them £4M a year to attempt to get out of League 1. We can reasonably assume we have been spending the same.
You can add up the £4M or so per year for every season we've been in League 1 since, and compare it to the £2M that would have absolutely bought Ben Thompson (probably 1.5x his market value at the time).
Wasteful policy and we know that the lessons have been learned since, as Tornante stated when they signed Morrell for what was probably 1.5x his market value at the time.