SPEAKMAN ON MORE ARRIVALS

SPEAKMAN ON MORE ARRIVALS

The good news is Kristjaan Speakman is looking to add ‘several’ more new signings to our squad. A goalkeeper, a centre half and a striker are the obvious areas that need strengthening…

“We've still got several more players that we need to acquire in certain areas of the pitch. I'll leave that a little bit loose for you, but we have to try to find the right players. We've never been knee-jerk in our decision making. We'll try to be calm, but it's the balance of being calm, waiting and trying to find [players]. Also knowing that you've got the right ones and being decisive. Momentum is important. We want to make sure we can start well. We knew that we had three or four players that we felt were the right ones and we've tried to do them. I think that just shows the ambition of the ownership and the direction of the club."

“We're not naive to the challenge. I think we have to be really clear, our mindset is that Sunderland needs to be back where it's always been. It's always been, on aggregate, around ninth place in the Premier League. It's top tier and that's the challenge, to reestablish the club back there and we're on a journey to doing that. The first part is being able to stay in the league. I'm really proud of some of the boys who have been with us since the start, since I got here and Kyril [Louis-Dreyfus] purchased the club. We've had loads of people who have joined on the way and chosen to come to us rather than going elsewhere. We've obviously got some more recent examples in the last few days of that happening.”

"Players want to play with good players. They want the challenge. They want a competitive squad and they want good people in the squad. Last season, I think everybody could see from the outside that we have a really united group and really passionate group about playing for Sunderland, which is what supporters want to see."

“We're a work in progress. It's obvious that the next step is going to be massive and so we need to reinforce the squad. Only one played at South Shields [Habib Diarra] but in the next few weeks we are going to add the others. We need to build this connection on the pitch and their physical condition as well. It's good to get players in early, it's always better. Ultimately the market decides, we always want the full squad [on day one] but it's never like that. So we'll see how it develops in the coming weeks. It's still a little difficult to know exactly what we will do because every day we are learning a little more about the players that we have. We are getting more information after every session, every game. So we'll see. We're adapting all the time.”