Kristjaan Speakman has confirmed that Régis Le Bris will have the final say on his assistant as Sunderland continues its search for reinforcements to the first-team coaching staff.
Le Bris began work on Monday with the existing coaching team of Mike Dodds, Michael Proctor, and Alessandro Barcherini. In his first press conference, Le Bris stated that he would not be bringing any staff from his previous club, FC Lorient, citing personal preference rather than a club directive. Sunderland’s sporting director, Speakman, said Le Bris would choose an assistant, and any further appointments would be assessed based on additional attributes that both Le Bris and the club deemed necessary.
“I think Regis is really keen to have the best, I think his phrase would be teammates, you know, even as staff,” Speakman said. “And he doesn’t, at the present time, have a cohort of people that he’s worked with probably more to do with his background [in academy football]. And he was really, really clear that he’s got a profile around the staffing structure and we’re currently trying to recruit another assistant to that profile. And then once we have that assistant in, that will have a knock-on effect, I’m sure, in terms of where we are on the other positions and where we want to expand or where we want to get maybe some additional detail into the staffing structure.
“He also doesn’t know the people we’ve got here, both coaching staff and wider, and it’s such a connected environment that as soon as you move one piece on the board, you might have to consider all the other pieces. So, at the present time, we’re going through that process, which is exactly what we did last time with the last head coach. Just unfortunately, the time caught up with us and we made some more significant changes. So, we’re at that point in time where we’re going through some profiles and ultimately Regis needs to make a choice on which one he feels is the best assistant profile.”
In his press conference earlier in the afternoon, Le Bris explained that he had a number of skills he wanted to ensure were present across the coaching staff and that decisions on who and how many staff to appoint would be based on this.
“At the moment, I’m discovering how the staff are working and they are working very well,” Le Bris said. “We define together the abilities and strengths we need. For example, we want someone who can be in charge of the whole process of individual development, which is a huge ability. Also, we need someone who can be very creative and efficient on set pieces. These are a couple of examples of the ideas we want to be fulfilled at the end [of the process]. At the moment, I’m working with the current staff and working out their strengths.”
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