'It's on me' - Michael Beale gives brutal verdict on 'costly' Sunderland weakness
Michael Beale says Sunderland misfired in attack, lost the midfield battle, and didn’t do enough of the ‘dirty’ defensive work at Huddersfield – but he says that’s on him and his staff.
Sunderland put in arguably their worst performance of the whole season at the John Smith’s Stadium, and it was a real momentum-killer after three good results previously.
Beale saw it the same, essentially saying Sunderland were poor in every element of the game.
“Really disappointing,” Beale told safc.com after the game. “We conceded again from a set play away from home. It's an area we need to improve on.
“Certainly in the time I've been here it's been really costly to the team. In the first half it was pretty much a midfield battle. I thought they were up and at us and we need to stand up for ourselves a little bit at times.
“When we get opportunities we need to be better in the final third with our last pass or shot. Second half we opened up and it made for a bit of an end-to-end game but we were the team chasing it as the away team, they had a couple of chances but it's fair to say we did as well.
“I’m really disappointed because it's an away game we’ve lost to a set play, that's on me and the staff who have to find the answers to that, because we know coming away from home teams are going to go for you and when you can't find a moment of quality you need to stay in the game, certainly in those moments.
The key moment in the game came when Huddersfield scored, and Sunderland were again caught out by a set-piece.
In fact, four of the last six goals Sunderland have conceded have come from set-pieces, with them all proving to be the deciding goal of the game.
This one was especially poor, with the Sunderland defence statuesque after Anthony Patterson parried away a free kick.
“When you can’t find it (the attacking quality) you have to do the horrible parts of the game, when the balls come in your box you have to put your body on the line, go in for rebounds.
“Patto has made the save there so where are we? There was a similar situation about five minutes after in their box right on half time and we have got to be more proactive in those situations.
“So in both boxes we lost, we lost because we didn't take our chances and ultimately coughed up a goal on a set play. Same at Middlesbrough and same at Ipswich.
“I am repeating myself so we have to improve on that.”
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