Sunderland AFC transfer news: What Michael Beale said on potential in and outgoings ahead of Ipswich match

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Michael Beale's pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday's match against Ipswich Town.

The Black Cats boss is expected to be here around 1:30, and we'll have live updates from the Academy of Light.

Stick around and refresh the page for live updates.

We'll start with the Sunderland team news.

Patrick Roberts (calf) and Bradley Dack (hamstring) remain sidelined and will be unavailable for the next few weeks. Dennis Cirkin is also still out with a hamstring issue.

Corry Evans is still recovering from an ACL injury, while Elliot Embleton is set for another lengthy spell on the sidelines with a thigh injury.

Niall Huggins is set to miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on a knee injury.

We'll get a further update from Beale later today.

Last week Beale said the club were actively looking to make new additions this month, while admitting nothing was imminent.

The Black Cats have been looking to bolster their central midfield options since the summer, while they are also exploring their striker options this month.

Bournemouth's Kieffer Moore and Blackburn's Sam Gallagher have both been linked with Sunderland, with suggestions the club could alter their recruitment strategy.

There has also been interest in Sunderland winger Jack Clarke, with West Ham and other Premier League clubs tracking the 23-year-old. Still, the Black Cats have made clear that they are not looking to sell their key players during this window.

Sunderland have confirmed Dennis Cirkin has undergone surgery on his left hamstring.

The defender is expected to be out of action for a 'minimum of 12 weeks' as he starts a rehabilitation programme at the Academy of Light. 

Obviously it was a disappointing day for everyone, fans, players, staff. It was a big learning day for the team and the response in training has been very good.

We have to focus. We have a fantastic game on Saturday evening against a team that's doing really well. Our focus is back on these 20 league games now and it needs to be because we are going away to a team that is second in the league.

We've had a chat as a group and to be fair the response in training has been fantastic.

They are a group that likes to train. They are a young group and a buoyant group.

At the weekend there we a lot of things in the game that were disappointing for us, but it's feedback. You come back in and it's not the level we are competing at every week, but it's the level that we want to compete at every week.

Alex Pritchard scored his first goal of the season against Preston and so did Nazariy Rusyn, which was important for the club that more people are contributing to one or two others that have maybe been the main goalscorers for the team this year.

We have kept two clean sheets in three as well, so there were positive sides. We ultimately want to get back in the play-offs and want to go one step further than we did last year, but there are quite a few teams in the Championship that want the same thing.

I knew it was a huge club but have been massively impressed during the first month I've been here, with the people that I've met, the passion inside the building as well.

Last week the atmosphere inside the stadium was fantastic. We want those sorts of days and nights at the Stadium of Light weekly.

Paddy will be out for probably the remainder of this month. We hope to have him back at some point in February. He''l be back before Bradley Dack.

Niall has had surgery this week and we won't see him for the best part of a year, maybe a bit more, which is really disappointing. We have released the news about Dennis Cirkin having an operation as well and he'll miss 12 weeks. That is hugely disappointing as well.