Sunderland owner Stewart Donald discusses his Josh Maja 'mistakes' - and reveals why he WOULD sign Will Grigg again

Sunderland’s failed contract talks with Maja – who subsequently joined Ligue 1 side Bordeaux – shot to prominence again following the release of the second season of Sunderland ‘Til I Die on Netflix.

Viewers see Donald growing exasperated at the lack of progress over a new deal for the young striker, and he vents his frustration at an agent that he believes is focused on a payday.

And while he admitted at the time that the €1.5million deal that saw Maja head to France was a ‘bad deal’ for the club, Donald has discussed the ‘mistakes’ he and the recruitment team made during the process.

Speaking to talkSPORT’s ‘GameDay’ podcast, the Sunderland owner said: “When we got into the negotiation, you can look into the body languages of people and ask did we look more confident of getting him than we probably should have been? Maybe.

“Did we move his money up quickly enough? We didn't get him, so we've obviously made mistakes there.

“We then spent an awful lot of money trying to replace him and that was, financially, not a good move.

“Ultimately, we offered them [Josh] what they asked for, and if we'd have done that in August I'm sure he would have signed - but he would have the most expensive signing we'd have had in August in moving a lad from £700 to £7000, who'd scored one goal. So we moved as it developed, I think he mentally moved as it developed.”

Since the release of the docu-series on April 1, some have questioned whether Sunderland were too slow in moving to tie Maja down to a new deal, and whether talks could have been kicked-off sooner.

But with a host of issues to contend with when he arrived at the club, Donald admits that a deal for Maja – who at that point was far from an established first-team player – was far from his most pressing concern.

“I think I said at the time, we came into a football club where Josh Maja had been barely mentioned to us by anyone at the club,” he added.

“He hadn't played a lot of games and we were dealing with half a dozen high-profile players that didn't want to be there and were causing issues.

“Josh was a lad who hadn't played a lot of football and was on a few hundred pounds a week, so it wasn't until the season started that we saw him.”

Maja has spoken out on his exit since making the move to France, insisting he was motivated purely by footballing factors rather than finances.

But Donald still believes that the striker’s agent was focused more on the monetary side of things – realising he stood to earn far more at Bordeaux than the Stadium of Light.

The Sunderland chairman said: “I know there's bits where we've commented that the agent got £1million and he's come out in the paper and said it's only half a million or whatever, if he'd have signed for us 5 per cent of £7000 a week I'm sure isn't half a million.

“So whatever those motives were, you look back at all of the season - and there were mistakes made not just with Josh - but Josh was a mistake made by the club and ultimately me.”

Following Maja’s departure, Sunderland turned their attentions to Will Grigg and eventually landed the striker for an initial fee of around £3million.

He has failed to hit the heights desired by the Wearsides since his arrival having netted just five times since that deadline day switch.

The scenes showing Donald negotiating with Wigan have proven to be among the most popular in season two of Sunderland’ Til I Die, but the Black Cats’ owner stands-by his decision to land the striker – especially given the financial rewards his capture could have brought.

He did, however, concede that he paid over the odds for a player for whom Sunderland had targeted since the opening of the winter window.

“Then you move on to Will and I always maintain with him, when we started the window he was our number one target,” added Donald.

“We set a figure of what we thought was fair and I think everybody at the football club thought ultimately that the money I went to on it was too much.

“But he got us the first goal to get us to Wembley which made us £500.000, and if he'd got us a goal in the play-off final you'd look back and say it was a good bit of business. But that's football.

“Would I do that again? I'd try and obviously make sure it didn't get to that stage with the Josh Maja scenario - but would I go and spend money on a striker if I thought he was going to make the difference and it was more than what he was worth? Yeah, because promotion is the most important thing.”