Michael Beale says he had 'big faith' that Sunderland would come good for him

Sunderland was not a happy place in January, and Michael Beale has opened up on how he came through it.

Michael Beale said he ‘had big faith’ that Sunderland would bounce back from their disappointing spell last month.

January was a nightmare month for Sunderland, with them losing to Newcastle in the FA Cup and followed that up with losses to Ipswich and Hull.

It resulted in fans chanting for Beale to be sacked, but things have settled down since and the Black Cats now head to Huddersfield unbeaten in three games.

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Speaking about the tough results against Ipswich and Hull, Beale said: “After those two results, it maybe didn't always seem it in front of you guys, but I was always calm.

“I see positives in playing Ipswich away and we should have taken points from that game. Then playing Hull at home, I know Hull set up to not get beat and they ended up winning it, which was incredible.

“We didn't play great but we certainly played better than them. Coming out of it I thought those results were harsh and I had big faith in the team turning it around.

“We need to go on a longer run than three games unbeaten, we have to show what we're going to be now in the next four or five games.

A big criticism of Sunderland from fans during that difficult period was that the quality of football had diminished significantly from what we had seen previously.

Since then there have been signs of it improving again, with some encouraging potential changes as well.

"We were going through a training process,” Beale explained. "When I first came there was no time to train, it was just play the game.

“Now we're going through a process of training where we're adding things in. It's difficult when you're not getting positive results and there's not positive noise because of the results, but we had to really focus. The credit goes to the players really.

"There was always a plan that we were going to implement this stuff and hopefully over time you'll see the benefits of that and that's what we'll be judged on.

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“We won't know, the end of the story will tell us whether we've been successful, not this period.

“That is the Championship. Every single manager and team has to ride the wave but we're focused on us.

“I want to try and take the energy and quality in the final third from the second half on Saturday, can we be that team for a longer period away at Huddersfield?"

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