Michael Beale has explained what he told his Sunderland players at half-time during the Plymouth Argyle clash and how he expects them to react midweek.
Sunderland headed into the weekend two games unbeaten, but an underwhelming first half left them 1-0 down at half-time.
However, Michael Beale appeared to work some magic in the dressing room, as Sunderland came out all guns blazing and put on a solid second half display and earn themselves the victory.
Both Jack Clarke and Pierre Ekwah have put down the three points to Beale’s half-time team talk, and the manager has finally explained what he actually told his players at the Stadium of Light.
Speaking to the media after the game (as per Sunderland Nation), the coach said:
“What we spoke about at half-time – too many backwards passes, too slow, one too many touches.
“That’s not how we want to play football and it’s important that we reset and we play well, better than today, away at Huddersfield.
“We’re going to go to a team that’s fighting for its life on Wednesday so the points are going to be really important for them,” Beale said.
“We don’t start 1-0 up or 1-0 down. We reset and must play every single game, every minute of the game with the right mentality and quality. We have to be positive.
“We can only do our job. If we hadn’t done our job today and seen the results in the league, we would have really regretted it.”
Can Sunderland start picking up points against the ‘worse’ teams?
Sunderland have a very poor track record for facing teams in the bottom half of the Championship this term.
While they have picked up points against the likes of Leeds United, West Brom and Southampton, they only actually managed four wins against the 12 teams that are currently in the bottom half in the first round of fixtures.
This includes defeats to Bristol City, Huddersfield, Stoke, Plymouth and Cardiff, as well as draws with Rotherham, Millwall and Swansea.
They have finally found some good form though and it would be a huge step back if they were to throw it all away against the Terriers in two days time.
Huddersfield have only lost one of their last five games, though three of them ended as 1-1 draws.
This week’s fixtures against Huddersfield and Birmingham could be huge in the Black Cats’ race for promotion, having already been knocked out of the top six due to Coventry’s 2-1 win yesterday.