
Kristjaan Speakman has addressed the recent speculation surrounding some of Sunderland’s young players.
The club does need to sell players, according to Sunderland’s sporting director, as Burnley keeps after Jack Clarke.
After a standout season the previous time around, Clarke is in high demand, but Sunderland are in a strong position because
the winger still has three years left on his deal. According to Sky Sports, Burnley’s most recent offer was in the neighborhood
of £9 million, which is incredibly unlikely to entice Sunderland.
At a recent fixture release breakfast, Speakman assured fans that, despite the possibility of sales at some point, the club is in
a solid position and that the key goal is to keep a team competitive enough to contend for promotion to the Premier League.
In a recent interview with The Athletic, he emphasized that stance and said the club was unconcerned about their position
during the window. The Premier League is interested in more players than just Clarke; West Ham United is considering a
transfer for Dan Ballard.
“The benefit of planning is that you’re basically doing a pre-mortem on those things. So if someone calls about a particular
player, it won’t be the first conversation internally we’ve had about that player.
“We have to be clear here: the model is to create a team that can get promoted,” he added.
“The by-product of that is having good players and, if you don’t get promoted, some players will go past you. They are
Premier League-ready and the team won’t be. Likewise, if you progress, there’ll be players who won’t keep pace.
“In terms of our squad composition, we want to be in a position where other clubs think our players would be assets for
them. That would put Sunderland in a strong position. In terms of how robust we can be in retaining players, if the question
is: ‘are we going let players leave on the cheap?’, the answer is no.”
Speakman added that the club fully understood the significance of the potential decisions ahead, and that they were
confident in their valuations.
“When we eventually sell a player who’s come, improved and moved on, I understand that will have huge implications for
the club,” he said
“It could be next week, it could be next year. We think we know where value is in the market and we think we know our
players’ value. I’m looking forward to adding that conundrum to Sunderland.”
Sunderland have meanwhile confirmed that they will play their first round Carabao Cup tie against Crewe Alexandra at the
Stadium of Light on Tuesday 8th August, with kick off at 7.45pm.
Tony Mowbray will likely rotate his side heavily, given that the fixture will begin 48 hours after the visit of Ipswich Town on
the opening day of their Championship campaign.
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