Sunderland chief pleads for patience over summer striker signings

Failure to convey accurate 'expectations' behind Luis Hemir, Eliezer Mayenda and Nazariy Rusyn criticism, says Kristjaan Speakman.

Kristjaan Speakman has asked for patience from Sunderland fans while the strikers the club signed last summer develop.

Sunderland signed three strikers on permanent deals: Elizer Mayenda, Luis Hemir and Nazariy Rusyn, but only the latter, who is the oldest, has scored so far.

It has led to significant criticism from supporters about the club’s transfer policy, but Speakman says that may be borne of a failure on their part to manage the expectation.

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"We've got a lot of belief in the players in the group,” Speakman said. “We've just got to get clarity and maybe we haven't been good enough in giving clarity around what our expectation of the players is.

“We signed a player around a year or so ago for example, and a lot of the feedback when we went to fan forums was that he hadn't done well enough. Well internally, we thought he'd already played more than we expected initially.

"We've got to understand where they are in the career, where they are now and where we're trying to get them to. I understand now that we live in a world where we all want things instantly - that's obviously the ideal if players turn up, integrate and perform immediately."

"Players aren't robots, you cannot take a human, move them and expect them to perform exactly the same, straight away, in a different environment. It's on us to try to create that environment for them and then it's up to them to step up.

“I've got faith in the boys to keep getting better, yeah. What level they can eventually get to will be decided by all those factors.

“If I had the magic answer to that then it's the Coca Cola secret, isn't it? We try to do the best we can with the information we've got, to make the best judgements and selections."

It seems very clear that patience is just part of the process for Sunderland now. That’s not going to change and Speakman is asking for fans to get on board with it.

He, though, also points out there are one or two examples of how well it can work out.

"Amad came and I don't think anyone would say he was in the team and was a superstar from day one, it took him a little bit of time for him to adapt,” he said.

“Ross Stewart, I think it's fair to say that it was probably around six months into his journey here [he began to play regularly].”

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