Sunderland wants Marcos Alonso, but would Fiorentina sell?

With the Black Cats already entering crisis mode after losing their first two matches, the club is in desperate need of reinforcements. Sunderland boss Dick Advocaat apparently claims that to compete, he needs Adnan Januzaj, Fabio Borini (hey, remember him?), and Marcos Alonso, to which we here at Viola Nation say, "Huh?"

Marcos Alonso is very familiar with the Premier League, and with Sunderland in particular. The Spanish left back spent three years with Bolton before joining Fiorentina, and moved to Sunderland on loan in 2014. More of an athletic defender than a cerebral one, he may be better suited to the faster and rougher English game than the slower and more intelligent Italian one.

While Alonso's defensive stats were excellent last year in terms of tackle rate, his game going forward lacks polish, and his crossing is best described as "uneven." In fairness to him, he was exposed as a wingback in Vincenzo Montella's 3-5-2 at times, a formation which forced him to provide all the width on the left; while he's certainly not suited to such a crucial attacking role, he's a perfectly serviceable left back.

Of course, Sunderland is rumored to be on the brink of bankruptcy and out of transfer funds. Advocaat, in fact, is meeting with the Black Cat brass to discuss whether or not he'll continue as the coach in the face of the club's difficulties.

If it somehow shakes out that Alonso departs, though - and there've been rumors from earlier this offseason of a fee a little short of 5 million euros - Fiorentina will be in desperate need of fullbacks on both sides, with Manuel Pasqual and Nenad Tomovic the only wide defenders left on the roster. And neither of them participated in Fiorentina's best silly goal of last season.

So yeah, for now we will classify this move as "extremely extremely unlikely," but to keep an eye out on the coming flip side from Sunderland SB Nation blog, Roker Report.