Kristjaan Speakman reveals details regarding Sunderland’s aims for this season | OneFootball

Sunderland will only decide on their targets for this season following the second international break of the season.

The Black Cats will be out of action for up to a month due to the break in play caused by the World Cup this winter.

The club’s sporting director Kristjaan Speakman believes that will be an ideal time for him to sit down with manager Tony Mowbray to hash out the objectives for the rest of the campaign.

Mowbray is only in the door at the Stadium of Light having replaced Alex Neil at the start of September.

The 58-year old has overseen one win, one draw and one loss since taking over the first team squad, who now sit in 5th place in the Championship table.

“We are an ambitious football club and when that question always comes up, there is a danger that you overpitch it or under-pitch it,” said Speakman, via The Northern Echo.

“We’ve got to be able to adapt to this league and I don’t think we’ve had that period.

“Certainly when we get to the World Cup break, I think that will be a really good point for us to start assessing and looking at how those players have done.

“But once we have adapted, we just want to progress.

“You are constantly reviewing and evaluating that as you are going through.

“We’re not going to sit here and say we are playing one game at a time and sit back in May and go ‘how did we do?’ We’re going to constantly do that.

“There will be review periods to see how we’ve gone after the first 20 or so games.

“We will then be planning for the January window and before you know it, it will be the end of the season and we will be looking at the summer window so it’s just evolving what is going on.”

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It has been an impressive start to life back in the second division for Sunderland, who earned promotion via the play-offs under Alex Neil last season.

But the 41-year old departed suddenly in August having been approached by Stoke City to replace Michael O’Neill.

Up next for the Black Cats will be the visit of Preston North End on 1 October.

The Verdict

Initially the aim for Sunderland was likely to maintain their status at this level.

However, a positive start to the season may see the club have to adjust its expectations for the remainder of the campaign.

But waiting until the World Cup is the smartest move, as that will also be when the club will be allocating funds for the January transfer window.

There are also so many games between October and the November break that so much can still yet happen to change the situation of the team’s league position.