Kristjaan Speakman issues significant update on Sunderland's search for additions to Regis Le Bris' staff

Kristjaan Speakman says Sunderland will resume the search for new additions to Regis Le Bris’ backroom staff, and says the club may yet make multiple additions.

Sunderland had been expected to reshuffle their backroom staff as a result of Le Bris’ arrival but the new head coach has worked solely with the existing staff since his arrival, and has made clear that he is happy with that arrangement and believes it is working well. However, both he and the club still believe it’s an area where they could add some value and the sporting director has revealed that they almost made an addition in late July.

After that fell through the process was paused, but the end of the transfer window means it will resume.

“The main thing is that we’re looking for the right calibre of person to fit the profile,” Speakman told The Echo.

“That’s the most important thing, and Regis is really clear on what he feels is the right profile, which we’re 100 per cent aligned on. So it’s about finding the right person. We got really close to getting somebody several weeks ago, but that wasn’t able to conclude the way we would have liked it to have done. At that point, we were entering the last two or three weeks of the window, so it didn’t make sense to over-complicate an already really busy period with the window coming to a head and the season starting. So, we sort of hit the pause button on it really because we were really comfortable with where we’re at. That doesn’t mean that we’re not ambitious to keep improving, and we will pick that process back up and hopefully find one or maybe more people to come and join the team. There are other first-team members of staff that we are adding to that pool that’s not in the assistant bracket, but that we also think, from a psychological perspective, are going to help us with what we’re doing. It’s a constant process for us to keep trying to improve.”

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Speaking just before transfer deadline day, Le Bris himself said: “We are still looking to do it.

“We decided about two weeks ago to stop that process at that level because of the work we had to do here in terms of developing the team and also the recruitment. It wasn't easy to also work on this third subject so we decided to pause it. Then, after the end of the transfer window, I think we will continue to search and add an assistant if it is possible."