Lee Johnson spoke about pre-season preparations, some changes behind the scenes and the importance of leadership within the squad...
PRE-SEASON
I feel that the boys have worked extremely hard and I have to give them huge credit. The young lads have stepped up and they’ve brought a tempo, a freshness and enthusiasm to our training sessions which has been enjoyable to watch. I think any eleven that we put out will be fit, ready, organised and ready to go.
POSITIVES
I think just the fact that the group’s bonded and blended. I think that cohesion is always what you worry about. You make three or four new signings and bring guys in, we definitely understand what we want in a player in terms of their main attributes and I think that’s really shown with the likes of Callum Doyle slotting in seamlessly and then obviously moving further forward up the pitch. I'm very comfortable with where we are, it's no secret that we want some new additions and hopefully they come soon to help us.
STAFF CHANGES
I think obviously at any football club there’s a natural evolution of staff or players and the important thing is that you support them moving forward. It’s a different step for Tayls but something that he’s been working towards actually for quite a long time. When it comes to David coming in it’s a really good role for him, it’s one that is close to his heart. He’s got a big affiliation to the club having been brought up in the area, obviously also played for the club so you’d like to think it’s some unfinished business.
LEADERSHIP GROUP
We could go quite deep into this one! It’s not been an easy decision because I think we’ve got five or six players with real quality in terms of leadership and we’ve tried to give them this year some different responsibilities and spread the responsibilities but the team captain will be Corry Evans. I think Corry Evans is obviously an established international, very well respected and very calm. I think at a club like this that sort of calmness personifies not just his performance but in his general day to day consistency which becomes very important. Vice-captain will be Aiden McGeady. Obviously a very different leader, a talisman if you like, somebody who really grabs the game by the scruff of the neck and also hugely respected within the squad, not only because of his career but also his football intelligence.
OTHER ROLES
Obviously we’ve got leadership qualities in the group as we discussed earlier and we’ve actually gone with two club captains and they’re tasked with driving the culture, driving the standards, particularly off the pitch. That is Bailey Wright who’s well-versed in the role having done it for me at Bristol City, and Luke O’Nien who we feel has real leadership potential both off the pitch but also, we’re looking to hone and develop that on the pitch and I think sometimes when we give someone like Luke that leadership role it’s a real focus into trying to improve. At the end of the day, we all need to do that so I said to the players, when we talked about the armband and we talked about the different parts of leadership, the reality is it doesn’t matter if you’re Ellis Taylor at 18 years old, we want to continue his leadership journey all the way through because hopefully he’ll be captain of Sunderland one day, and that’s how we’ve got to think.
COMMUNICATION GROUP
They (Gooch and Flanagan) come into the communication group or leadership group and really what that is is those six guys. Any sort of key subject that we need to discuss cross over. It could be with the Sporting Director, it could be me, it could be bog standard in terms of any issues and players love to moan, so better to do it through the ones that are very good communicators.
