Kristjaan Speakman outlines next Sunderland priorities and drops exciting contract hint for supporters

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Kristjaan Speakman has outlined his next priorities at Sunderland following the appointment of Régis Le Bris

Kristjaan Speakman has acknowledged that Sunderland need to communicate better with their supporters after the protracted search for a new head coach.

The club's sporting director has also hinted that the club are on the brink of announcing some significant new contracts after the first-team group officially began pre-season training on Monday.

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Speakman spoke to club media on Monday and accepted that the club had fallen short in the second half of last season, which preceded a search of over 100 days for Michael Beale's permanent replacement. It was a challenging time for supporters as the summer began with little meaningful update, and Speakman says the second half of the campaign will be used as motivation moving forward.

"We're really excited to be back," Speakman said. "With Regis, we've got a really thoughtful, diligent and detailed coach - tactically really astute. Everything he'll be doing will be geared towards developing the group, the team, individuals and winning games.

“Acquiring a head coach is always a complex process but it would be remiss of us not to admit that our comms wasn't great over the summer. That wasn't intention, the plan was to go out early with information, that became difficult with how the process went. Even when Kyril made that statement in June, it was weeks before we we able to concluded the deal and announce Regis. We'll certainly try to improve that and we really the patience [of the fans].

"No one is happy with how the second half of the season went. There's a little dose of failure there for the staff, the players and myself and that's not necessarily a bad thing in terms of our drive and desire to want to get better. It's always important to learning and we've learned a lot about ourselves and each other, and hopefully that makes us stronger for the season coming up."

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Speakman is looking to step up the club's summer transfer plans after three goalkeeping deals were confirmed shortly before Le Bris' appointment, but has also said that retaining talent is a key focus moving into the pre-season period. It's believed that a first professional deal for Chris Rigg is now close, while Speakman's comments hint that there could be more news in the coming days and weeks.

"We want to make sure the pre-season is executed really well, it's all about really good planning," Speakman said.

"My ultimate focus is the transfer window and making sure the squad is in the right place moving forward, we've already started that process with the goalkeeping changes we've already made. It's also about retaining talent and hopefully we'll have good news in the next couple of days on some our exciting talent."

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