SUNDERLAND chief executive Martin Bain insists David Moyes was appointed to oversee a “long-term” rebuilding project on Wearside, and accepts the club has “lost its identity” over the last few years.

Sunderland find themselves at the foot of the Premier League table after failing to win any of their opening eight matches for the second year in succession, and their two-point haul at this stage of the season equals the record for the worst start to a Premier League campaign.

Moyes was only appointed as Sam Allardyce’s successor in July, but his efforts since taking over on Wearside have come in for increased criticism in recent weeks, with some Sunderland supporters criticising his signing policy in the summer and what they perceive to be an overly negative approach.

Bain, who was only appointed as the head of Sunderland’s boardroom set-up himself at the start of July, accepts the club are in a perilous position at the foot of the table.

But the Scotsman insists there is no desire to change manager, and claims Moyes in an integral part of the Black Cats’ long-term plans.

“(He has) experience and character,” said Bain. “I think David is probably one of the top four most experienced managers in PL history in terms of the number of games he’s been involved with and managed.

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“Fundamentally, that experience, coupled with his longer-term approach to life (are important). I think he’s a builder. He’s someone who absolutely understands the need to win first and foremost, but in parallel with that, he understands the job he’s been brought in to do, and the job I’ve been brought in to do, is to build and almost rebuild.

“I think it’s probably apparent to everybody that we’ve got a journey to embark on here, so when I first met David we obviously had to discuss a bit about the past, but now working together as a partnership, it’s obvious that we can’t change the past, but we can certainly change the future. We have to look forward.”

With Moyes charged with engineering an improvement on the pitch, Bain has been focusing his attentions on addressing Sunderland’s off-field issues.

The club have racked up a significant amount of debt under their current owner, Ellis Short, and while much of that is owed to the businessman himself, there is a desire to ensure that the balance sheet does not get out of hand.

There is also a determination to rebuild the relationship between Sunderland and its fanbase, and while previous senior figures in the Stadium of Light boardroom have talked of ‘broadening the brand’ and creating a ‘global awareness’, Bain is much more focused on ensuring the club is comfortable in its own skin.

“We discuss getting the basics right, and as CEO of this football club, that’s the biggest message I’d like to get across to the people who work here and our fans,” he said. “We want to get back to basics.

“We’ve got a football club here that has to be very synonymous with its North-East identity. I think the fans want that from their football club, and without being disparaging to anybody who was here before, I think it’s maybe lost its identity and tried to be a club that it’s not. Therefore, it’s very much a case of ‘Let’s do the basics correct’. Let’s build and take a long-term approach.”

That long-term approach will include an attempt to improve Sunderland’s dreadful record in the transfer market.

A succession of players have arrived for huge fees in the last decade or so, only to be sold at a loss or even released, and Bain accepts such a model is completely unsustainable.

“This football club has to get better at buying and selling football players,” he said, in an interview with Sunderland’s official website. “I see it, and I hope I can achieve it.

“From a player trading aspect, like it or lump it, we should be looking at players that we bring to this football club, maybe being sold on for a greater value. Or indeed, we are rearing our own. Maybe we have to look a little bit more at acquiring at a certain age too.

“You can look at the commercial revenue streams and maybe see a ceiling in certain areas, or a chance to look outside the box in others. But fundamentally, for a club like this, we have to get our player trading model right.”