Sunderland transfer news: Stuart Harvey steps up search over international break

The Black Cats are planning for a crucial transfer window and though head coach Tony Mowbray has explained that his role is at this stage relatively limited, he has a close relationship with the club's head of recruitment Harvey, who he promoted at Blackburn Rovers and reunited with when taking the job on Wearside.

Sunderland are in the process of establishing their potential targets for the window and Harvey is a central part of that, and is currently undergoing a number of scouting trips to watch players more closely.

"Stuart Harvey is a friend of mine, and I worked with him for five years at Blackburn Rovers," Mowbray said ahead of the international break.

"I talk to Stuart all the time, but I'm sure there are lots of meetings that go on between the sporting director and Stuart, and the owner and Stuart.

"I know he has a lot of travelling to do over the next few weeks, games to watch, international stuff, tournaments to see.

"I'm happy to come in at the end of the recruitment [process], watch a player that the club really likes and then give an opinion and say 'yeah, he could really fit in'.

"There are millions of footballers out there … my job is to coach the team, no necessarily to sit for hours and hours in the data room looking at the data and saying 'why don't we check that league' and 'why don't we see what that player's like because he has scored a lot of goals or he's put the most crosses in, what's he like - is he fast, is he technical?'.

"That's their job, and what they do is put the ones they like in front of me and I'll then give an opinion on whether I like him or not.

"It's a collective, really, at this football club."

Mowbray has explained that the coaching and recruitment staff are aligned on the need to add some more depth and variety to the squad, with recent home fixtures exposing a lack of physicality in the squad.

However, the head coach says that the club is determined to build a side generally that can dominate possession and excite the supporters.

"We work to a bit of a remit," he said.

"This club wants to try and dominate the ball, they want to play with the ball the majority of the time, and yet sometimes when you're playing against teams that have just come out of the Premier League it's hard to dominate the ball because they have much better players than you have.

"They're good with the ball, that's how they play. So if you can't dominate the ball, you have to find a different way.

"Against a lot of teams, we have to sign players that fit into what we are trying to do. We want to be an in-possession team if possible, we want to get the fans out of their seats, try and create goalscoring opportunities, try to be creative and effective.

"Can we create a team that epitomises that? We're trying."