Sunderland sporting director Kristjaan Speakman has now shed light on their pursuit of Manchester United winger Amad Diallo.
Sunderland ended their transfer window with three new signings as Leo Hjelde, Callum Styles and Romaine Mundle all arrived at the Stadium of Light.
There was still a feeling of dissatisfaction from supporters that more business could have been done.
Of course, in a dormant market for most clubs, doing business was hard and the Black Cats found that out in their chase of Amad Diallo.
After a successful season last term, where he scored 14 often spectacular goals to help Sunderland gatecrash the play-offs, the club were desperate to bring him back.
Diallo even said the only club he would leave on loan for is Sunderland and while that prompted excitement from supporters, landing him proved to be difficult.
Although he’s rarely played for Manchester United this term, they were reluctant to let him leave after letting widemen Jadon Sancho and Facundo Pellistri depart on loan.
Given they didn’t want to leave themselves light in attacking areas, the club didn’t allow him to depart in January, ending Sunderland’s long-term admiration of the 21-year-old.
Sporting director Kristjaan Speakman has now revealed that their pursuit of Diallo prevented them from signing other targets in the transfer window.
Speaking to BBC Sport Tyne & Wear, he confessed: “Ultimately, you’re then waiting on player availability most of the time, whether that’s on a permanent basis or loan basis and it ran it’s course that he wasn’t available, you know he hasn’t turned up anywhere else.
“We’d stayed in that for as long as we possibly could and in hindsight, you could say that was to the detriment of maybe signing another player earlier on”.
Did Sunderland need another winger?
After signing Mundle permanently from Standard Liege, Sunderland now look well-stocked down the right flank where Diallo would have played.
Initially, they did reportedly open talks with Arsenal youngster Charles Sagoe Jr, but nothing materialised from that and they instead signed Mundle, who will offer strong competition.
The former Tottenham Hotspur academy graduate supplied 12 goal contributions in 24 matches in the Premier League 2 last term and will join Patrick Roberts and Abdoullah Ba as options on the right.
When looking at the depth that Beale has in that area, signing Diallo wasn’t a priority and while he’s an upgrade on who they currently have, putting all of their eggs in his basket was perhaps a mistake from the Sunderland hierarchy.
Nonetheless, new signing Mundle will hope to make his debut for the club against Middlesbrough tomorrow lunchtime.