Sunderland boss Martin O'Neill has added Steve Guppy to his coaching staff.
Guppy is back from coaching and playing in the USA and will work one-on-one with James McClean.
O'Neill said of McClean: "I know when he was at Derry he did want to improve and he wanted to get stronger because he was a big skinny lad and he has also worked on that here. He certainly has the appetite and has not baulked at all at any of the work.
"It is not going to be all plain sailing. He will come up against top quality full backs and teams doing that to him and he has to find ways and means to cope with these things and be able to overcome them and that is something he will have to learn.
"You don't want to reward someone who hasn't really deserved it. With Gabby Agbonlahor at Aston Villa for instance when I arrived he had almost left a couple of months earlier to Birmingham but that was stopped and within 18 months we had renewed his contract three times and each time he deserved it.""The new contract is great news for him and he is repaying us by playing which is great news for the club because we have potentially, a top quality player in our midst who can improve and will have to improve because teams know about him now and, as he found at Blackburn the other night, have started to double up on him because they know he is a threat.
