Sunderland produced a sensational run of late goals to secure promotion to the Premier League
Kristjaan Speakman has opened up on Sunderland's play-off strategy, praising the club's players and staff for buying into the high risk rest and rotation policy.
'Momentum' was the key word on Wearside as Sunderland's form dipped dramatically in the closing weeks of the regular season, with head coach Régis Le Bris changing his team significantly from week to week. The policy paid off in the play-off campaign, Sunderland's bolstered squad scoring late goals in all three ties to secure the club's return to the Premier League.
Speakman said the strategy was devised after hours of meetings behind the scenes at the Academy of Light and that the decision was made that a fully-fit squad was more important than a sequence of wins to end the season.
The club's sporting director was speaking at the Foundation of Light's annual fixture breakfast.
"There was a huge amount of work undertaken behind the scenes," he said.
"It was an incredible amount of work, we had meetings, chatted with the players, just trying to understand what that last group of games should look like. For us, momentum was a really interesting topic. What does that look like? Out of the last five games, you could win three and then lose the last two and people can say you've lost momentum. We felt that the momentum needed to be internal, with the group and with the team. To get that, we needed everyone fit and healthy so that everyone could come in on the first day after that final game against QPR going, 'right, everyone is fit here'. We felt that would give us the level of intensity we needed in the training sessions to make sure the preparation for those games was right. That was the discussion and that was the decision we made. In hindsight it was a really positive decision, it doesn't always work out like that but we just wanted to make sure that we had a fully fit group, fresh and ready to go.
"It also gave the guys an opportunity at the end of a 50-odd game season just to take the pressure out a little bit [so they were ready for the play-offs]. I was really proud of everyone, everyone bought into what we were trying to do."
David Bruce on Sunderland's 'Til The End campaign
Sunderland's Chief Business Officer David Bruce also spoke at the event, highlighting the role the club's staff played in resetting the mood and environment ahead of the Coventry City games and Wembley final.
"From a business perspective, I felt we did a good job of making those games feel different," he said. We made it feel really different with the content and the storytelling, the 'Til The End line that we brought back became a mantra that everyone believed in. There were a lot of little details to get that buy in that Kristjaan talked about, dressing the bus, giving the players [new] tracksuits. It felt like a completely different time of the season and everyone bought into that. I think we showed the potential that this football club has. If you could bottle what we had against Coventry, it's a good as anything you'll get anywhere in the world. It was absolutely phenomenal."
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