Dave Jones, Sunderland's non-executive director and Sky Sports host, has used Ipswich Town as an example to the club's hierarchy to suggest what they should do in the upcoming January transfer window.
Sunderland are broadly looking to achieve what the Tractor Boys did last season. Of course, they managed to complete a historic back-to-back promotion to the Premier League; Sunderland, if they were to go up this season, would have done it three seasons on from their promotion from League One, but it'd still be a former top tier side returning to the level after years away.
They have had a slight wobble of late, having not won a match since the end of October, but they are still well in the hunt for the top spots in the Championship.
2024/25 Championship table (as of 03/12/24)
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The January window could give head coach Regis Le Bris and the rest of the squad an extra boost to push them in the direction of a Premier League comeback. The Frenchman's position at the club doesn't give him control over what goes on in the transfer side of things, but those who are have been given some advice to maybe replicate what Ipswich did last January.
Dave Jones' Ipswich Town advice to Sunderland hierarchy
Jones, who is probably best known for his work alongside Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher as a host on Sky Sports, is also a non-executive director of the Black Cats.
He has told the club's owner and sporting director, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Kristjaan Speakman, that they should look at what Ipswich did, and the options that they had in attack, last season and how it helped them to achieve their success.
He said on the Not The Top 20 Podcast, when talking about recruiting forwards in the new year: "I keep reminding Kristjaan and Kyril that Ipswich Town, I mean, how many strikers did they have last season, in their promotion season? Off the top of my head, I would say at least four, maybe more than that.
"They were able to rotate and you'd often see Kieran McKenna (Ipswich's manager) get to 70 minutes and change his entire frontline. Quite often they would be scoring goals in 90+ minutes as a result of that.
Ali Al-Hamadi with Kieran McKenna
"I don't think you can ever have too many (strikers), would be my view, but I'm not the one that has to answer to the budgets at the end of the day."
Sunderland should certainly use Ipswich's blueprint to help them find Championship success
This idea of overloading opponents with multiple rounds of top attacking talent is not one that is exclusive to the Tractor Boys. Leeds United, more so in the previous term than the current one, were also able to throw a barrage of options against the teams that they were playing against, overwhelming them with sheer talent.
Despite the loss of Jack Clarke in the summer, Sunderland still have a lot of quality players in forward areas. So did Ipswich, who Clarke now plays for, but they still went and signed Ali Al-Hamadi from AFC Wimbledon and Kieffer Moore on loan from AFC Bournemouth.
They both got some key goal contributions which ultimately drove them away from the chasing pack and towards automatic promotion. The same could happen for Sunderland if they are effective with their winter recruiting.
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