Kyril Louis-Dreyfus updates fans on Sunderland strategy and Ross Stewart contract
Monday night saw Sunderland supporters group Red and White Army hosting an open Q&A with the key people at the top at SAFC - Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, Kristjaan Speakman, Steve Davison, and Dave Jones.
As expected, questions covered the striker situation, Ross Stewart’s contract, the Alex Neil debacle and general recruitment and strategy. Here’s a summary of the key points discussed.
Thanks to A Love Supreme who kept fans up to date via their Twitter account.
On current situation and progress
Kyril Louis-Dreyfus: “It’s important to remember where the club has been in recent past. There are huge things to do before I consider it to be ready for the Premier League.”
David Jones: “This football club is chalk and cheese from what it was two years ago. In every area there is professionalism. There just wasn’t before.”
On recruitment and strategy
Kristjaan Speakman: “Strategically we’re trying to build the squad over three or four transfer windows. We’re trying to build year on year. That’s why we’ve got so many young players and a few old players. We’re trying to maintain that balance.”
KLD: “Squad value is higher than it was six months ago. Six months ago it was higher than twelve months ago. Hopefully it’s even higher in six months time.
“Categorically, we only recruit if there is a strong willingness to come to Sunderland and move to the area. We’ve stopped signing players who you have to overpay and convince to come here”
“Look at Derby County. They were in the playoff final, 90 mins away from the Premier League and 18 months later they’re in administration. That’s a risk none of us are willing to take. Bayern Munich and the German clubs in general are an inspiration in terms of how they’re ran.”
DJ (referencing Brentford and the “Moneyball” method of running a football club): “They made profit. Nobody makes profit in the Championship. They got promoted and made profit. I don’t think it’s time (to sell star players) just yet. But that time is fast approaching. You have to sell players to convince players to come to you.”
KS: “Every club in the world sells players in some shape or form. Over the last years Sunderland haven’t had players of value to sell. We signed Callum Doyle to show clubs that we’re willing to start a 17-18 year old if they’re good enough.”
DJ: “Stuart Harvey is an absolute diamond of a bloke, and I look forward to having a conversation about which little Costa Rican he’s going to bring to the club next!”
On home form
KS: “Me and Kyril have been speaking about this for a few weeks. None of us are happy with the home form. We have a young squad and we need to maintain a really good level of support for them. It’s the first time a lot of them have came up against this scrutiny. Hopefully their quality shines through and the SoL can become a fortress.”
DJ: “Don’t think we’re sitting here thinking everything is okay. We’re asking challenging questions of each other and none of us think the home form is okay.”
Steve Davison: “I think it would be better atmosphere if the away fans were moved back to the lower bowl”
On striker situation
KS: “We wanted two dynamic, strong strikers in Ross and Ellis. Our variety in that position was Leon (Dajaku) and Amad. Tony has been right at the forefront of ‘right, how do we solve this problem’ of no strikers.
“If our analysis says that a free agent number 9 won’t be good enough, and will knock another player out of the squad, then why would we do it? Jack Clarke was a player we signed in L1 because he played a lot of his games for Spurs under-23s as a number nine.”
KLD: “It’s up to us to not feel sorry for ourselves and try and find solutions.”
On Alex Neil
KLD: “Multiple offers were made (to Alex Neil). A new contract was signed ten days before it happened. We didn’t go just to the limits, we went over the limits to retain him. We don’t know what Stoke offered. But we offered one of the biggest wages in the Championship. Clearly something inside him attracted him to Stoke more than Sunderland.”
KS: “I interviewed Alex on three occasions. He was happy with the model.”
On Ross Stewart
KLD: “We are having ongoing conversations and we all hope he will stay at Sunderland. We have to plan for all eventualities and make sure we know what we’re doing.
"Plan A is to keep him. We would only consider selling someone if we had confidence we could replace him with someone better.”
On Juan Sartori
KLD: “He is a very busy man with his political career. He’s not really involved in the day-to-day basis but he’s been supportive with almost everything we’ve done. I’ve seen him more as an asset than a problem.
If you look at Monaco where he’s been involved before, they’re one of the biggest clubs in Europe. We’ve got the synergy between these two clubs to exploit. And he’s a local politician in Uruguay, we can utilise those links.”