Sunderland are hopeful of adding to their squad in the closing stages of the transfer window – and holding onto their key players

Kristjaan Speakman emphasized once more that Sunderland does not need to

sell players during the January transfer window and that, as of right now, they

have not had to turn down any sizable bids.

Despite intense speculation about Jack Clarke’s future in particular, Speakman

said the club had multiple bids on the table to try to bolster their roster before

the transfer market ends next week. The sports director said that he did not

currently anticipate any significant departures.

“I’ve heard about players being sold, but our goal is to keep our best players, help

them grow, and help them advance in the league,” Speakman stated.

“I don’t see any of those external moves happening. We have not had anything externally to consider.

“I get the nervousness around selling players, I really do, because there are players there we all love, internally and externally. Our ambition is to retain our best players and keep evolving and developing the group. We want to keep performing, try to perform even better, and get to a higher place in the league. From that perspective, I don’t see any of those external movements happening. We haven’t had any discussions on any of those things and we haven’t had anything to really overly consider. So it’s business as usual from our perspective.

“I can never sit here and say that a player is never going to leave because Real Madrid could phone up and say, ‘There’s a lot of zeroes on this figure’. We’ve just got to try to ensure that fans understand that the ownership have the best intentions around building a team that we can keep improving. If the method behind it was to sell, then we would already have sold loads of players. We’ve had loads of opportunity to sell talent, so I’d like people to take comfort in the fact that that hasn’t happened on too many occasions.”

Speakman also confirmed that he club were in dialogue with Manchester United over Amad’s future, but reiterated Michael Beale’s view that he is unlikely to be loaned out by the Premier League side.

“In the transfer window, there’s loads of things that are never going to happen that happen, and there’s loads of things that don’t happen that you think might happen,” Speakman said.

“That’s just the market we live in. The situation with Amad is really clear. We’ve got a really positive relationship with the boy and his people, we’ve got a really positive relationship with Manchester United and I think everyone was really delighted on all sides with what happened last season. Do we think he’s a player that could come and improve our team? Yes. Have we inquired about him? Yes. Have we kept in contact? Of course we have.

“My head might be on a stake at the beach if we hadn’t stayed in touch about him.” That is the situation. We will be aware of any alterations to that image and will comprehend its current position. That doesn’t imply, however, that even if he were available, we would sign him, as I’ve stated many times, I believe he’s a tier one talent and he’s likely going to play elsewhere in the top leagues.”