Kristjaan Speakman has reviewed Sunderland's January transfer window, and says the Black Cats are still looking at adding free agents.
The Black Cats signed six players in the window - Trai Hume, Danny Battth, Patrick Roberts, Jay Matate, and Jermain Defoe, along with taking Spurs forward Jack Clarke on loan - and let several leave, with Tom Flanagan, Aiden O'Brien, and Denver Hume among the departures.
Sporting director Speakman revealed that the Black Cats had tried and failed to bring in another centre-back on deadline day, and also had a number of bids for player fail to come to fruition towards the end of the window.
Speakman spoke to Frankie Francis and Danny Collins on the club's SAFC Unfiltered podcast to give his assessment of the club's January business.
The full transcript of his interview about January window is here.
Are you likely to bring in any more free agents?
As soon as the transfer window finishes, you are in the pursuit of trying to improve the group, the squad, and we'll always look at that free agent market because you always want to make sure there's nothing you might have missed.
We are doing that now, and we always have a three or four-day period where we run that.
Ultimately, we are super-pleased with where we got to at the end of January.
it's probably one of the most difficult Januaries I have experienced in recent years, especially with the difficulties around Covid, squads obviously needing to be maintained at Championship and Premier League levels because of the rules and regulations about fulfiling fixtures.
Everyone has recognised that has put a huge delay on it.
We were really pleased that we were able to get a lot of our business done early and that we weren't doing too much in the final 72 hours, although obviously we did have some incomings in that period but a lot of that was stuff that we were tying up that we had been working on for a couple of weeks.
If you look at the type of players we have brought in and how they complement both the strategy and the functionality of the team, we are really, really pleased with those players.
Are you happy with how the window has gone?
We are really happy with the window.
It's a constantly evolving piece of work, it's not finite, and we now move to the next window - you're constantly striving to improve so I don't think anybody wants to say 'that's it, we're done'.
We are really, really, happy about where we are leaving January and heading through the rest of the season to the summer.
Fans have said that we are perhaps a bit short defensively with Tom Flanagan, Denver Hume and Ollie Younger all leaving. Are you still looking to recruit?
In terms of numbers-wise, at centre-back we had four and we have still got four. Bailey Wright is a week to ten days away from coming back.
Everybody will have a view on the value and quality of those four and I'm super-comfortable with that, but we have four in Danny Batth, Bailey Wright, Callum Doyle, and Arbenit Xhemajli.
If you said to me what would you have done or could you have done, naturally we would have liked to have acquired another centre-back and we tried really, really, hard to do that both in terms of significant bids on permanent players and also loan players.
But you also have to draw a line and say how far are you going to go before you are doing something that is negatively going to impact what we are trying to do.
From that perspective, we were really comfortable with where we got to.
You can bring players in, they can be successful, you can choose not to bring a player in because you don't think he is going to fit, but myself and the recruitment department tried really hard to identify and get another one but it wasn't to be.
That player didn't exist in the end in the scope of what we wanted that player to be.
What can you tell us about Jay Matete, who arrived from Fleetwood?
Jay is completely aligned to our strategy and philosophy in terms of trying to find and acquire young talent that has the ability to grow with the club.
He's potentially got future value, he is a dynamic, versatile, midfield player, he's got loads of energy and a real vibrant personality.
He can carry, retain, and keep the ball, he can play forward, he is an aggressive player in that middle third and I think he will really complement the existing players in the team.
He can also be part of that longer-term view.
It's not just a case of signing him for the long-term, he can also come in and hit the ground running and have a massive impact on our season in the final 17 games.
A lot of footballing minds saying the Matete deal is arguably the signing of the window for Sunderland because a lot of clubs were looking at him
I felt for Jay a little bit because he ended up getting the deal done on deadline day and it got quite late towards the end - albeit for no real sinister reason at all, to be fair.
Then we had another signing that night which not so much overshadowed Jay, but took the spotlight off him just a little bit.
Jay was well-coveted from the Championship and the Premier League and at the minute that's the value and the power of Sunderland that we are tracking and monitoring these players and are ready to go, you have ownership that is happy to spend the money - significant values, I think if you look at our transfer fees in this window I don't think anybody will have spent more money than us, certainly on transfer values and then wages.
The rest of the market wasn't able to move on some players, unfortunately.
There were lots of team who were really disappointed they couldn't move for him because they had this financial reason or this or that.
We were able to get the deal done really quickly and acquire the player.
He'll be a huge success for us, I have no doubt about that. He's a great kid, and he's absolutely buzzing to be at Sunderland.
Patrick Roberts and Jack Clarke also came in
They are completely aligned to our playing philosophy, they have some real tactical flexibility - Jack can play in either of the two number ten positions and he can also play wide and also as a nine.
He can take the ball to feet, he can run in behind, and can be really expansive.
A lot of fans won't have seen him play as a nine because he has tended to do that in behind-closed-doors games and U23 fixtures, but that's the depth of our recruitment process, we are looking at the little nuances where we might be able to get a competitive advantage.
Patrick is a well-known player in terms of his profile, where he has played and where he has come from.
He's not had a great period in his journey over the last six months in terms of where he is at, but he's here, he's thrilled to be at Sunderland and he is exactly what a Sunderland fan would want to come and watch on a Saturday because he's explosive and exciting.
Everyone's journey is different and while they [Roberts and Clarke] would want that kind of linear progression, you run into these problems and it's what you do about those setbacks that matters.
I see two young lads who love their football, love getting on the ball, love playing in front of that crowd - it's a big pull for Sunderland to come here and play in front of 30,000-plus fans.
I think you could see with someone like Alex Pritchard, at the start people were questioning why we signed him but once you see him in the environment and get him up to speed then you start to see the quality of the individual, and I see a very similar thing with these two.
They have work to do because that's where they are, but what a great platform for them to come in and show what they've got.
It's a win-win situation, if they can play, perform and do well then naturally we will reap the benefit.
Sunderland have defensive problems and have brought in Trai Hume and Danny Batth
Our goals against, our xG against, and all that type of stuff, you can't move away from that and think it doesn't exist - the [problem] is clear to see and you want to try to make some improvements to it.
I think it's really unfair to say it is a problem at the back, it's a team game and how we defend from the front and how we get that pressure on, when and where we get that pressure on, where do we put that defensive structure, is really important to that.
Trai has come in from Linfield from a slightly different model from a training perspective and we are trying to get him up to speed as quickly as possible, but again he has bags of long-term potential and he is straight in with the first-team squad every day in training.
Danny is obviously slightly different, we felt we wanted greater leadership on the pitch, some presence, because the general gamestyle in League One can be very direct and that may be where we have suffered a little bit.
Danny showed in the Portsmouth game how you can dominate and give the team a lot more structure and confidence to go forward.
We were delighted to get him because a lot of teams would be interested in signing that kind of calibre of player.
How soon after Jermain Defoe became a free agent were Sunderland looking at him?
We were looking at Jermain last summer. Rangers won the league and did really well, and there was a question mark over what Jermain would do next.
Remaining there in that position they provided for him was natural for him, given the success he had had there.
We enquired at that point, we tracked it through, and it became apparent that he was going to be available.
We had conversations to see if it was something that would work for both sides.
It's a transfer that draws a lot fo attention in the local area and nationally because of the connection he has with the football club, therefore it draws a lot of scrutiny, a lot of podcast hours, a lot of posts on social media.
We get that.
But the process has to work for both sides, and it is nice when you get that romantic bit in elite sport - they don't tend to come around very often.
On the decision to let Tom Flanagan leave
Tom was in the final six months of his contract, he had had an outstanding season for us, but with the moves we were making he might not get the gametime he had been getting.
We made a really significant bid on two players in the last week of the window in that position because we felt it was an area we wanted to keep on improving on, and then on deadline day we had three or four loan players that really fitted what we wanted to do but unfortunately they didn't materialise.
It happened to be the same day that Tom left, so I get that people say 'you should have kept him' but those decisions were already taken and the conversations with the other players were already happening and it could have a 'yes' at any point in the last three days.
On the decisions to let Aiden O'Brien and Denver Hume leave
Denver has been here as an academy graduate and we want to assist those players to get the right exit routes.
Ollie Younger and Josh Hawkes are two more players in our academy programme and we wanted them to know that we would look after them and help them.
It's well documented that Aiden nearly went out on loan at the end of the last window but that one fell through on deadline day.
He was first-class in his attitude and application but naturally he felt he should be playing - we'd be really worried if he didn't!
With the signings we had made in Clarke, Roberts, and the other players we had, where was his gamtime going to come?
It was a natural conclusion for him to find an alternative [club].
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