Chris Coleman admits Sunderland need more '˜pace and power' ahead of January transfer window

The Black Cats have struggled to adjust to the demands of the Championship this season and were overrun in the second half against Reading last weekend.

Their long-term deficiences in terms of pace and power were compounded when Duncan Watmore suffered a cruel recurrence of a cruciate ligament injury.

Joel Asoro has impressed in three substitute apperances under Coleman, who admits he will look to make changes to the make-up of the side in the coming months.

He insisted, however, that he will work to get the best out of his current squad, even if new recruits don’t arrive at the turn of the year.

He said: “In any successful team, you need pace and power, of course you do. You need to be mobile, you need that explosiveness offensively.

“We lacked that in the last performance for sure. Reading do that to most teams, to be fair – they keep the ball and knock it around.

“You’d prefer to play them away from home, where you can be patient, whereas at home you have to take it to the opposition, so it was tricky for us.

“(In) the second half it was back to reality and, in terms of the make-up of the team, yeah, we need to change certain dynamics.

“Offensively, we need to change things and have a slightly different make-up, but maybe to do that it is getting people fitter or getting people in who are capable of doing that.

“Clearly we have a problem, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are.

“Having said that, the players we’ve got, those are the ones who need our support, who we need to work on.

“We need to squeeze every last drop out of them. There’s no other way around it.”

Coleman has lined up some targets for the January window but admits that moving players on will be key if he is to make any permanent additions.

He said: “In terms of the January transfer market, we’ve got targets. Will there be a transfer kitty?

“Maybe not, unless we lose a player, sell a player or two, or even if someone goes out on loan somewhere else.

“We need to add to what we’ve got, lose one or two maybe. Clearly we’ve got to do something, it’s obvious we need to do something, whether it is getting players back fit or getting that quality from outside.

“Otherwise, we’ll be in the same position we’ve been in for too long.

“As a team, we need to be more dynamic. Maybe we can change that [in January], maybe we can’t.

“Whatever we’ve got we’ve got – we have to get the best out of that. Any team is looking at the window trying to better their squad. Wolves will be exactly the same, even if the starting position is different.

“You’re always looking to strengthen and that’s no different for us.”