Sunderland sporting director Kristjaan Speakman has shared an injury update at the club.
Sunderland are getting well into their pre-season plans under new head coach Regis Le Bris, who arrived at the Stadium of Light in June.
On Thursday, Le Bris and Kristjaan Speakman attended the latest fans’ forum, discussing a number of topics.
Among the topics was the club’s ongoing search for a new striker, with Speakman once again suggesting that he’ll scour the transfer market to bring a prolific no.9 to the club.
Also among the topics of discussion was injuries; upon their return to the Championship in 2022, the Black Cats have seemingly been plagued by injuries.
Especially during the 2022/23 season, Sunderland have struggled on the injury front, with the club having their share once again last season.
Two of the club’s longer term absentees are defenders Jenson Seelt and Niall Huggins, whom Speakman recently shared an update on.
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Sunderland injury latest on Jenson Seelt and Niall Huggins
Defenders Seelt and Huggins missed large parts of the 2023/24 Championship campaign through knee injuries; Seelt since March and Huggins since December.
Both proved to be big misses for Sunderland with both players showing improvements before their subsequent injuries.
Speakman gave an insight in both players’ rehab, whilst also offering an update on Aji Alese, who returned towards the end of last season, and the rarely-seen Dennis Cirkin who featured just eight times in the Championship last season.
Speakman told Roker Report: “Jenson and Niall are progressing well. Dennis and Aji are in great condition.”
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Kristjaan Speakman has to pay close attention to one thing this summer
Speakman has a long list of matters to address in the transfer market this summer.
But one quite important thing he has to pay attention to is to those players returning from injury.
Seelt and Huggins, as well as fellow defenders Alese and Cirkin, will all want game time next season, and the likes of Cirkin and Alese may be able to hit the ground running.
Then Seelt and Huggins will add further competition, bolstering what look like quite a healthy defensive rank at Sunderland when everyone is fit.
Speakman then needs to be careful of adding too many new names to the defence and preventing the likes of Seelt and Huggins from returning to the first-team picture when they eventually make their returns to fitness.
Both remain players with huge potential and both could become very valuable assets for Sunderland.
But if they can’t ever get back into the team because Speakman replaced them in the transfer market, then that potential could be wasted.