Time to go: Sunderland must finally brutally axe awful flop who’s cost £575k per goal - opinion

Alex Neil has no choice but to axe on-loan Will Grigg this summer and shouldn’t offer the Northern Irishman a new contract.

Grigg was offered yet another escape from his Sunderland nightmare in January when he joined fellow league one promotion hopefuls Rotherham on loan until the end of the season.

The striker joined Sunderland from Wigan Athletic just over three years ago for £4m and has only scored eight goals in 62 appearances for the Black Cats.

He has previously been on loan at one of his former permanent clubs MK Dons where his record improved scoring eight goals in 20 appearances.

Despite this, it just hasn’t gone to plan for the 30-year old in a Sunderland shirt and the club could save a lot of money by not renewing his contract. So far he has been costing them a whopping £575k per goal he’s scored.

The club are in the hunt for promotion and if they do go up then players will likely demand big wages thanks to the huge player salary gap between League One and the Championship.

In some ways, it’s a shame to see a player who was once one of the best strikers in the division, during his time with Wigan he won the golden boot in the 2015/16 season, dwindle in the way he has.

He is a promotion specialist having gone up from League One three times during his career, but it looks as though he won’t be involved in any promotion celebrations with Sunderland.

Grigg was signed by former Sunderland manager Jack Ross on deadline day in January 2019 to replace Josh Maja who moved to Bordeaux for £1.3m.

He has failed in the task to replicate Maja’s form, who when he left the Stadium of Light was Sunderland’s top scorer with 14 goals in 24 league appearances that term.

The fact it was a deadline day signing may show that signing