Michael Beale has urged his Sunderland side to stay positive and quickly bounce back from their defeat to Huddersfield Town when they face Birmingham City
The Black Cats dropped one point of the top-six pace as a result of their poor performance in midweek but Beale insists he would rather have his group of players than any others in the chasing pack. Patrick Roberts’ hamstring injury has been a big blow to Beale’s preparations this week but he is confident that between them, Abdoullah Ba and Romaine Mundle can take on the burden.
“I think we’ve got enough talent in the room,” he said.
“We’re at a stage in the season where, naturally, there’ll be some doubts because there’s five or six teams within one point of each other so there’s five coaches probably feeling the same at the moment. Results are not going perfectly for anybody. What’s important is that we find the resilience that we need and the mental stamina that we need so that we don’t go into the games feeling down or too high from the previous game. We have to reset. It will be a different problem for us to solve this weekend. We’re looking forward to going down to Birmingham for this game and showing a response and that’s our focus now. We need to get to the March international break within touching distance and then after that every game is a cup final. At this moment in time, it’s not a moment for panic. It’s a moment for taking a deep breath, there are some areas we can improve in – I would still prefer to be Sunderland manager than manager of some of the other clubs that are in that fight. So it’s positive. We have to go into each game knowing that this league is relentless and it’s important that we stick true to what we’re good at.
