Sunderland sporting director Kristjaan Speakman has stressed the importance of finding balance in the squad as he and his team look forward to a busy and productive summer. The Black Cats will need to refresh and improve the squad for Championship football after they beat Wycombe Wanderers in the League One playoff final.
Speakman has received criticism from fans for his recruitment, much of which has brought in young and exciting talent. But a lack of balance between them and the experienced heads led to a huge wobble at the start of the new year. Alex Neil showed his intelligence in pulling the likes of Dan Neil, Elliot Embleton and Callum Doyle out of the firing line before reintroducing Embleton to score the opener at Wembley.
And the former Birmingham City academy manager explained how this summer is crucial in applying balance and experience to a squad that can compete in the second-tier - but that doesn’t always mean bringing in older heads.
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“Age and experience is not always as easy as that. You can have some very experienced 20-year-olds that have played two years in the Champions League.” Speakman said. “Probably not the ones for us next year, don’t want to raise expectations on that!
“It’s about what experiences those players have had. We spent a lot of time in player recruitment discussing around ‘someone could be old but they’ve not played’. For example, take Sunderland. Last year in League One, we’re playing in front of 35,000 people.
“We’re taking an experienced player but in actual fact, they’ve never played in front of that amount of people. So their experiences, even though they are 28, aren’t really relevant for this scenario.But you might take Jack Clarke who has played for Leeds in front of a really lively crowd, under pressure and at Tottenham. Then you go ‘he’ll be absolutely comfortable in that environment’.
“We wanted to get a balance. Maybe it’s a slight miscommunication on our behalf which we will apologise for. There is some science and data of where those teams that perform are. You can be older and have a really good succession plan. We’re just trying to get the balance right.
“We’ve just got to make sure that there is enough balance, the coach has got enough choice based on injuries, form to make sure we have got the right eleven.”
A lot of what went well for Sunderland in the first part of the season, however, came from those young and exciting talents. The likes of Doyle, Daniel Neil and Anthony Patterson provided a fearfulness that comes with youth.
And Speakman - as a former academy boss - knows how important it can be to bring through your own from the academy, fostering the fans passion and spirit in the team and saving plenty of money in the process.
“After what happened to Sunderland in the last five years, no other club in this country is going to go through that period of time and retain a category one academy.” Speakman added. “It’s unique.
“Because it means so much to the people that they’ve got that environment for those elite players to go to in the North-East. Kyril (Louis-Dreyfus) absolutely fundamentally puts academy football, youth development, young players, aspirational culture at the heart of what we are doing. Naturally, we want to see those players come through.
“You’ve got (Anthony) Patterson that we laid out a development programme for. He’s come through and we’ve given him loads of different experiences. He’s developed, he’s worked his way into the team on his own merit and performances and he’s out there on Wembley as another local boy.
“We’ve got a lovely balance in the group around some of our young players and our senior group. We’ve got to try and maintain that balance moving forward.”
