Sunderland chairman Stewart Donald has admitted that the club have yet to get their money's worth out of striker Will Grigg.

The Northern Irishman made the move to the Stadium of Light during the January transfer window, joining from Wigan Athletic for a £4million fee, a record amount paid by a League One side.

Grigg has previously won promotion from League One to the Championship on four occasions, with Brentford, MK Dons and then twice with Wigan, but the striker has so far struggled to settle in the north-east, scoring just eight goals in 43 appearances for the Black Cats.

That is not the sort of record Sunderland will have been hoping for from an attacker they invested so heavily on, and reflecting on the decision to bring Grigg to the club, Donald told BBC Radio Newcastle:

“Last January I tried to do what was needed, it just didn’t work, but I’d still maintain that if you were put in my shoes, you’d do what I did.

“It didn’t work, it didn’t always work, but the reality of it is that we’ll have to try and have a better January than we did last year.

“At the moment, [Will] doesn’t look good value for money."

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Despite that, Donald is confident that recently appointed Sunderland manager Phil Parkinson will still be able to get the best out of Grigg, with the Black Cats chairman adding: “But the boy has got a proven pedigree, he’s a good lad with desire.

"So Phil has got to get him firing, and if he does he’ll be one of the best investments I’ve made.”

Sunderland are currently seventh in the League One standings, one point off the play-off places and eight adrift of the automatic promotion spots after 15 games of the league season.

The Verdict

You can certainly see where Donald is coming from here.

When you are going to invest that much in an attacker, you will inevitably expect to him to provide more goals at this level than Grigg currently has, particularly considering his previous record at this level.

It seems therefore that Grigg needs something big sooner rather than later if he is to turn his situation around at the club, especially given they are currently underperforming as a whole under Parkinson right now.

If Grigg can be the man to help kick start a resurgence around the Stadium of Light and help Sunderland back to the Championship, in the way he has done more than once before, then there is no reason why Donald's investment cannot still turn out to be a very profitable one indeed.