Sunderland boss outlines the key factor that could shape the scale of the club's January transfer business

Régis Le Bris has again stressed that the scale of Sunderland's incoming business in January will in part be guided by how the club's injury list clears over the coming weeks.

Preparations for what could be a pivotal transfer window have been stepping up behind the scenes in recent weeks but Le Bris says his own primary focus for the time being has been focusing on the players already in the building. He referenced some encouraging individual performances in a reshuffled XI at Millwall as evidence of growing depth in the squad. And while his options have at times been stretched due to injury and suspension, he argued that this might not necessarily still be the case when the window eventually opens.

"At the minute, we are still finding new players in new positions in our team," Le Bris said.

"As I said before, like Aaron as a ten and Eliezer as an 11 on Saturday. Salis will be back soon [in December], Ahmed and Ian too. So we will probably have three or four more players [by the time the January window opens]. So I don't know how much will we need right now, the focus for me and the staff is to enjoy the players that we have here. There are a lot of strengths in the squad, even if some have been injured. We could have a lot of players in a lot of positions [if they recover from injury]."

Sunderland are anticipating interest in some of their best young players over the course of the month, but are in a strong position both financially and contractually.