Sunderland AFC transfers: Rating every incoming deal sanctioned by Kristjaan Speakman and Stuart Harvey- photo gallery

In his time at the Academy of Light, the former Birmingham City man has overseen a radical overhaul of the club’s playing squad with the Wearsiders focusing on their academy, and buying young players to be nurtured and blooded in the first team.

It is a strategy that has produced results, with Speakman providing a squad that Alex Neil managed to brilliantly turn into promotion winners following Lee Johnson’s under-achievement.

However, with any recruitment strategy, there are pros and cons. Speakman has been criticised in some quarters for not providing Sunderland with enough depth, as evidenced by the injuries to Ross Stewart and the recall of Ellis Simms which left Tony Mowbray without any senior strikers for large parts of last season.

Here, though, we drill down into every signing sanctioned by Speakman since his arrival at the club and rate them from one to ten.

Note that we don’t include the signings of Mason Burstow, Nazariy Rusyn, Jenson Seelt, Eliezer Mayenda, Timothee Pembele and Adil Aouchiche as they haven’t played for the club enough as of yet to judge and we haven’t included youth team signings like Timur Tuterov.