Kristjaan Speakman delivers clear message on Sunderland's summer striker signings as January pursuit continues

Kristjaan Speakman says he believes Sunderland's summer acquisitions will continue to improve and insists that the club must remain patient as they adjust to a new environment.

Sunderland signed three strikers in the summer on permanent deals, with Mason Burstow also joining on a season-long loan from Chelsea. Though Burstow and Nazariy Rusyn have got their campaigns up and running with a goal apiece in the new year, it has been difficult start to the campaign for all four.

Luis Hemir and Eliezer Mayenda are yet to score, though Mayenda's involvement has been limited significantly by injury. Sunderland are keen to add an experienced striker to their ranks before the end of the January transfer window, to ease the burden on the quartet this season and to potentially allow Hemir to go on loan and get regular game time.

The club's sporting director nevertheless believes that they can prove to be a success over a longer period for the club.

"We've got a lot of belief in the players in the group," Speakman said.

"We've just got to get clarity and maybe we haven't been good enough in giving clarity around what our expectation of the players is. We signed a player around a year or so ago for example, and a lot of the feedback when we went to fan forums was that he hadn't done well enough. Well internally, we thought he'd already done more than we expected initially.

"We've got to understand where they are in the career, where they are now and where we're trying to get them to," he added.

"I understand now that we live in a world where we all want things instantly - that's obviously the ideal if players turn up, integrate and perform immediately. Amad came and I don't think anyone would say he was in the team from day one and everyone said 'this kid is going to be a superstar for Sunderland', it took him a little bit of time for him to adapt. Ross Stewart, I think it's fair to say that it was probably around six months into his journey here [he began to play regularly]. Players aren't robots, you cannot take a human, move them and expect them to perform exactly the same, straight away, in a different environment.

"It's on us to try to create that environment for them and then it's up to them to step up. I've got faith in the boys to keep getting better, yeah. What level they can eventually get to will be decided by all those factors; if I had the magic answer to that.... then it's the Coca Cola secret, isn't it? We try to do the best we can with the information we've got, to make the best judgements and selections."

Chelsea have decided not to cut Burstow's loan short after a challenging first half of the season, with Beale recently praising his application on the training ground after his recall to the starting XI on Saturday afternoon.