Phil Parkinson met the press ahead of this weekend’s visit of league leaders Wycombe. The Sunderland boss discussed the transfer window, a week of statements and Kyle Lafferty.
Parkinson said: “I know this division there are so many ups and downs, any team I have managed which has been successful in it has seen periods where you have struggled a bit. I have always known where I wanted to get the team and squad to. Clearly in terms of the squad, January is important and that is why we are trying to address that. The squad is light in certain areas, there are positions where we need to rectify problems so we are having to look at that and we are making progress.”
“I have to give the owner credit because we were wondering what would happen when he made the statement about selling, but he is putting the plans in place to make sure that everything is behind us in terms of making signings. What he has said publicly, he has said he is 100 per cent behind us improving the squad in this window. He is fully committed to doing the work he has done. He has said he is willing to sell the club, but while he is here he will do what he can to help us. The supporters have said what they have had to say, the chairman has responded, nothing will be done overnight but we need everyone to pull together to make sure this run continues.”
Parkinson also admitted that he’s met up with Northern Irish international Kyle Lafferty: “We have had talks with Kyle,” he said. “We have a long list of players and if we get a deal over the line we will let everyone know. We have targets in mind and if we don’t get our first one then we will make sure we get one from our targets. I would rather leave it at like that. He is a player we have spoken to and we will continue to talk to him along with many others.”
Ahead of Wycombe’s visit the dressing room has been hit a bug. Parkinson explained: “There’s nothing major. There has been a bit of illness around the building. Joel Lynch missed loads last week, Luke O’Nien has been off the early part of this week. There is quite a bit going around. If you go back to the first few games we did play the way we were playing now, even if it was a different formation, like Tranmere at home, Shrewsbury away, we completely dominated. We then lost our way a bit with the cup games, changed the team, call-ups, lost our cohesion and we feel we are starting to get that back.”
