Castle issues Sunday ultimatum

2:45pm Wednesday 18th June 2008

Comments (1)   Have your say »

Steve Castle has warned wantaway striker Akanni-Sunday Wasiu: play ball or I'll sign someone else.

The bruising Nigerian frontman has been ignoring Castle's phonecalls and text messages as he attempts to fix himself up with a Football League club.

However, Saints boss Castle believes the former Bournemouth trialist has been "ill advised" by his agent, who has come in for recent flak from City chairman John Gibson.

Wasiu was recently quoted as saying he had fixed up trials with League Two side Brentford yet Castle insists that is nonsense. The manager is preparing for every eventuality by looking at potential targets and any future deals could leave the burly hitman, who scored three goals in 12 appearances last season, out in the cold.

"I'm still in the dark with Sunday," said Castle. "The talk about Brentford is a load of rubbish. My assistant, Andy Edwards, did his UEFA B badge with their manager, Andy Scott. He phoned him up and was told he (Scott) had never heard of Sunday.

"I'd like to sort something out with Sunday as we saw last season there is something waiting to come out of him. But he has not been very forthcoming in terms of answering my calls and replying to texts - I've lost count of how many times I've tried. He told my assistant he was coming back to sign for us yet he has not spoken to me.

"I have no bitterness towards Sunday - he has been ill-advised by his agent and that annoys me," added Castle.

"For the player and agent to be keeping quiet while thinking about going to a bigger club...they don't realise how well connected I am. The first thing the bigger club will do is call us to find out what his pedigree is like.

"I admire his ambition to throw himself into trials for a League club but it is also about the timing. When you play up front your goals record is paramount and while he did well for us last season he did not set the world alight on the goal front."

Castle, who steered Saints to Blue Square South safety last season, is not one to rest on his laurels and is in hot pursuit of several other strikers to fill the void left by Wasiu's expected exit, preferably ones without an agent.

"I've been in football 25 years and the number of agents has dramatically increased in that time," commented the manager.

"For Premiership players, fine, but players at this level should not have agents - I don't see the point.

"I'm already looking elsewhere (for strikers) - I'm not letting the grass grow under my feet. If Sunday suddenly comes back and I've run out of money, so be it. You can only have the phone put down on you so many times. If he is not going to talk to me it doesn't look like it will happen."