Every word from Michael Beale's Sunderland press conference on transfers, the ability to change things from the bench and a look ahead to the clash with Hull City on Friday night.
Michael, any sign of any movement or anybody coming in?
Nothing to report, it’s same as last week.
Nobody out either?
Nope.
When you look back to the weekend and the ability to change things, how do you deal with the younger or foreign players who are thinking they won’t get a chance?
There’s a couple of things. Timothee Pembele hasn’t played much football so we sent him to play with the U21s, he got an assist, Mayenda scored two goals. We’ve seen the brightness of that and what it’s given those two. That’s the reason they didn’t travel. Burstow is working hard every day in training. Rusyn the same. I’ve been pleased with Rusyn since I’ve come into the club, he’s played more with me being here than previous. He’s got a goal and worked hard for the team. There’s a little bit of a connection with the language, that’ll take a bit of time, nothing I’m worried about. Semedo has trained better and there’s an adjustment. We’re working with those boys all the time. I think it’s also overlooked, we lost Niall Huggins in our very first game and he’s an important player for us in the first part of the season. We’ve not had Dennis Cirkin as well. We’ve lost Bradley Dack and Pat Roberts as well, we’ve lost four starters in my opinion. Naturally any squad in our league, when you have injuries like that, it’s going to impact the whole squad, certainly our squad with our players. In terms of the boys that are in here working, the training levels I’ve been really pleased with and I’m working away with those guys. The eyes are on the future of one or two of them, if we put them in now for a club our size, maybe we’ll kill them a little bit so you’ve just got to trust us.
Do you remove yourself from the tensions around the club?
I think look, when the season started and the boys come back in pre-season, where we are now in the league would be okay. The positivity has to stay the same. I’m sure the team will get great strength off the home fans. We have played three of the last four games away from home in the league. Our away form this season hasn’t been top if we’re honest. We went away to Hull, a team around us and won. We lost a really tight game at the weekend to fine margins and it was really disappointing coming back. The positivity from the group has shown this week. We have to go into the Hull and Stoke game and perform. If we do, we’re in a fantastic place.
How much can you implement new ideas with the squad that you’ve got because you need more numbers?
There should be a lot of clarity because if you’ve got less players, the focus of those guys playing, the clarity and the relationship should be really strong. I’m pleased. As the month goes on, if we can get one or two in – there’s people working so hard in the background and probably won’t get the credit for that until one or two come in. I can assure you we’re working really hard. It’s important for me and my staff that we’re focussing on the players that are here in front of us and getting the best out of them. Then anyone that comes in can add to that. Likewise we don’t want to be waiting for something that doesn’t arrive.
Dan Neil said after the game the rest of the players also need to come up with the goals?
It was a tight game away from home against a team that has lost the least games in the league. I think we conceded with 15 minutes to go but before that we had the best chance of the half and even after that we had a chance where one or two players get in each other’s way. It was disappointing to come back from that. We now go into a home game where we really want to push and get the three points. That’s the focus I think with the Championship, everyone can beat everyone. When you look at the table and see how many defeats people have, look at our record it’s 12 wins and 11 defeats. We have to be at our best. We can beat anybody. We’ve beaten a lot of the teams around us. Hull just recently who are neck and neck with us in the league and pushing for the same result in the league. What we can’t do is dwell on the result. We have to just go into the next one and that resilience and stamina is going to be very important in the next couple of months.
Jay Matete is back, does he give you a little bit more freedom in midfield now to take the workload off Dan Neil, Pierre Ekwah and Jobe?
It is a big ask [to keep relying on them] but if you ask them, they just want to play. You ask them and they’re living their best life if you want. They’re playing, they’re challenging themselves each week and most weeks they’re excelling, so they won’t want a rest. But certainly, having Jay available and hopefully when we get Corry and Embo coming back, and young Chris Rigg – he’s shown some really nice things but he’s 16. That’s the nature of our squad. I go back to the three or four that we’ve lost and that’s not helpful at all. The one who is closest to coming back in a couple of weeks in Paddy and I think he’ll really help us because that maybe frees up Pritch or Abdoullah to go and play inside as well.
Are you expecting a close game with Hull again?
There won’t be much between the two teams and there’ll be a lot of games like that between now and the end of the season and that’s why we were disappointed [at Ipswich] and the frustration was shared in the dressing room amongst ourselves, it stays there, but for us to lose a tight game on a set play, that’s where the frustration was coming out of the game. You can miss chances and things like that but to lose such a tight game on a set play [is frustrating]. Just before I came in we beat West Brom and we got the first goal from a set play so you know how important those little isolated moments are in the game. I thought our performance away at Ipswich, in the main part, was good and there would have been a lot of positives had we got a result there. The focus now is on these two home games. Three out of the last four away has not been kind, now we’ve got two really big games at home. We know Hull well. We put in an excellent performance at their place.
Are these two home games ‘must win?’
No, in the 19 games coming if I say that I could create a mini crisis. Every game at this football club the fans say is a must win, so I support that and the players do as well. Let’s just play the 90 minutes that are in front of us. I think sometimes as a young group you can start looking at 19 games when actually the one you’ve got to play next is the most important. So let’s focus on Hull on Friday night. It’s another game on Sky, it’s another game for our team to showcase themselves and let’s get a positive result and put everyone else under pressure on Saturday in their fixtures.
Any injury news?
Nobody is back. Aji had a slight issue today, he came out of the session and I’ll need to assess that. Aji has done well since coming back into the team, so let’s hope that’s not an issue.
How have you found your first month on Wearside?
It’s been everything I expected it to be. It’s a wonderful football club, there’s a lot of expectation, it’s a young group that’s got lots of potential but we’ve got to move towards fulfilling it and being more consistent – that’s probably the big word. From what I’ve seen our team shouldn’t be scared of anybody in this division. We should go into every game with real optimism and then it’s going to come down to our quality in both boxes. In terms of the demands of the job, I was aware and it’s something that you’re looking for – you want to go in where there’s passion and a demand for results and we’ve got it here. The biggest thing for me is; when pre-season started would the group have been satisfied with where we are now knowing we’ve got games coming up? I think we would. So now it’s time for everybody to really push the next three or four months because the clubs around us are really doing that, uniting and pushing, and it’s important we’re doing that because we have every single chance of having an excellent end to the season.
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Would you say the group are starting to play you want them to play?
I think that’s going to take a little bit of time to be honest. You’ll see changes in the structure over time but, at the moment, we’re trying to keep things very much the same in terms of a defensive shape and organisation. But over time it will evolve, for certain. I look at some of the players we have in training like Jenson and Nectar, they train ever so well, so we do have an option of a back three if we were able to get another left-sided defender in. Aji coming back in has given us that option as well and at some point either one of the forwards in the building or someone coming in will change the dynamic in the final third, that’s for sure. I think we have the joint fourth or fifth best defensive record in the league which often gets overlooked because we’re a possession-based team. I think we’re only 13th or 14th for scoring goals so that’s certainly an area we can improve.
How important is it the home crowd gets behind you?
It’s really important. We have the biggest home attendance in the league and we take the biggest following away as well. When teams come to play against us it’s special to play at our stadium, it’s an event. We’re one of the big clubs. We don’t want anyone happy to come and play at the Stadium of Light, we want them to come and feel the full force of the team on the pitch and the fans in the stand. That starts with me and the team and us providing a performance for the fans to get behind.
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