Kristjaan Speakman has given an insight into Sunderland's search for a new head coach - and the reasoning behind Lee Johnson's sacking.
The Black Cats' sporting director is leading the process to recruit a replacement for Johnson, with Roy Keane currently the favourite to return to Wearside.
Speakman spoke to Frankie Francis and Danny Collins on the club's SAFC Unfiltered podcast to give an update on the search.
The full transcript of his interview about the head coach search is here.
Sunderland lost 6-0 at Bolton at the weekend, since when Lee Johnson has been relieved of his duties. Is that result the reason why he is not at the club any more?
I don't think we want to be looking at these types of decisions around singular results, although it is right to say it was a significant result.
We are constantly reviewing and evaluating and all parts of the business and obviously the first team is a real focus for us.
We want the team to be in a position to get promoted at the end of the season, we want to see results with some consistency, and when yo uget to a 6-0 away defeat and the manner of that defeat, it is an additional topic on top of some of the other topics discussed at executive level, at board level, and at ownership level.
It's the underlying inconsistency and the alignment to our philosophy and the way we want to play which has probably caused most concern.
We are in a really, really, good position for promotion and based on that the decision was taken to make a change to try to ensure that we can try to populate the top two and put ourselves in the best place of going up.
Sunderland dropped to third in the table on the back of that Bolton defeat. Is it a case of having to act quickly while there are still 17 games to go, and bring in someone with new ideas to freshen things up?
It's a really competitive environment at the top end of League One and you've got a couple of teams who are maybe pulling away a little bit, you've got some teams behind us doing really well, and the points gap has definitely narrowed between that top eight.
If we continue with the inconsistency of results and more so the inconsistency of performances, we are not going to meet that short-term aim of getting promoted - and we risk some danger around that even with the play-off scenario based on that trend of results.
We are also not moving that strategy forward in terms of the game style that we want to see being played and that we have been really explicit about from the start.
These are all conversations that we have had internally with Lee and the guys previously, and it gets to a point where decisions have to be made - a decision not to do anything, or a decision to do something.
That's not something where you come away from a game saying 'right, this is what's happening', it's a series of really, really in-depth meetings at executive level, at board level, and at ownership level because you are talking about really significant parts of the football club and making sure you're making the best decision to mitigate as much risk as possible.
They are never easy decisions because you are discussing people that you are working with, whose company you enjoy, and that you know from a personal perspective they are trying everything they can and they have moved away from home to be around the football club and giving everything to the job.
It's only fair to any member of staff in that situation that you give your full care and attention to making the right decision.
Are you constantly looking at other coaches, just as you would players who might potentially sign?
We have a really clear criteria on the type of head coach that we want to work for the club, what the requirements are of that individual, and what we are judging them against.
Naturally we are running a succession plan for that position so we have been tracking coaches over the last year, not because of anything underhand - any top business would have a plan on who would be their next chief exec, who's head of sales, who's going to come through.
We have internal members of staff but it is a big bridge to jump to go on and be a head coach, certainly for a club the size of Sunderland, but we are also looking at who is out there who matches up with our style of play, who is progressing, who could come in and add value to our football club.
When the position becomes vacant, other members of the football community pop up and there are others to consider who you might not have considered because you weren't sure whether they were available etc.
You have merge all that into the right process, to make sure you come out with the best decision.
Fans will be looking at the names linked with the job and the different types of coach - old-school or up-and-coming - and wondering what best suits this group of players
We want to be really detailed and thorough in investigating individuals because naturally we exist in a very media-focused environment and we get very generic terms of reference - old-school manager versus up-and-coming.
We are trying to go a couple of layers below that - what impact does that person have? What style of play do they have?
Sometimes you can get a lot of confirmation bias in that, but we have a data and analytics team and we want them to be able to robustly challenge the process and make sure we have no misconceptions.
There's also the human side of it, the connection with what's going on here and how we are working, and whether they understand Sunderland.
It's not just a head coach's job at a football club, it's the head coach's job at Sunderland.
Who is involved in the recruitment process?
The process is well under way. Obviously there was a bit of a delay because we were in the last 24 hours of the transfer window.
From an integrity point of view, what we didn't want to do was pursue a search process while we still had a person in situ because that would be disrespectful.
The search is led by myself in conjunction with the executive team, so Steve Davison and Kyril, members of the board are assisting and then on top of that we have our football management team here at the AoL because the head coach has to work as part of that team.
For the latest Sunderland news direct to your inbox, go here to sign up to our free newsletter
