Sunderland revamp continues with two behind-the-scenes appointments

Sunderland have made two further behind-the-scenes appointments as the club's extensive revamp both on and off the pitch continues.

Sunderland Sporting Director Kristjaan Speakman says there is still a significant amount of work to do to get the club back to where it needs to be in all aspects of its operations, but says that the key heads of department at the club are all now in place.

That will pave the way for the club to start building up its infrastructure in the coming weeks, months and years, with recruitment one obvious area of focus.

The club is also eager to build up its data and analysis operation, having hired James Young to head up a new department earlier this year.

"There is lots to do,"

Speakman said.

"Our ambition is obviously to be a Premier League football club so if you have that as the end marker then there is a lot still to do.

"We've just made two acquisitions behind the scenes.

"We've appointed a guy called Andrew Young, who has started as Head of Performance and Medicine.

"We've also appointed

Sam Ash, who has joined as Head of Administration and Operations.

"So we now have all our heads of domain in place now, and that infrastructure is all set.

"Then what we're doing is each of those heads of domain, such as Stuart Harvey at recruitment, are building out what they feel is the most appropriate, fit-for-purpose structure.

"Stuart has just finished those plans and we're starting to implement them right now.

"Obviously, the difficulty there is every six months this transfer window business pops up to take your focus away, so once that's done we'll then start to really dig deep into how we're preparing for the summer, and how we can widen our net and get greater depth in there.

"The other thing on top of that is building our own system in terms of our own data and tracking, so that we've got something that's really high quality for Sunderland."

Speakman has overseen change across all areas of the club, including the appointments mentioned above and the promotion of Lewis Dickman to Academy Manager.