JUST IN: Michael Beale explains his biggest ‘concern’ at Sunderland

Michael Beale has revealed his main “concern” following Sunderland’s defeat by Birmingham City.

In their inaugural season in the Championship, Sunderland greatly exceeded expectations, narrowly losing out to Luton Town in the play-off final.

It seems, nevertheless, that they have merely regressed. The Black Cats have won four of their last 12 games since adding Michael Beale to the team in December to take Tony Mowbray’s position. They currently occupy the tenth spot in the league standings.

Their loss to Birmingham was their second straight, and they are now four points off of sixth position.
It’s hardly surprising that a lot of fans are starting to doubt their chances of making the playoffs this season—even Michael Beale has acknowledged that it would be “difficult.”

As the season approaches its last few months, the Sunderland boss has revealed what his top “concern” is.

We need to get better, he remarked in an interview with Sunderland Echo.

“We’ve got some big away games. I think what we can deal with right now, is pick the bones out of this one and make sure that we get a positive performance and result next week at home to Swansea. Without improving our away form, you’d have to say it’s going to be difficult. What I will say, is there’s a hell of a lot of football to play, at some stage we’re going to have to go on a run.

“We’ve been used to that in the last couple of seasons, making a late surge for it. We’re certainly not giving up on anything with the games we’ve got to go. Our away form all season has been a concern.”

Given that we have only won one of our previous twelve games away from home, there is no denying that our current away form is a major problem. In Beale’s six games in command, they have also only managed five goals on the road.

Looking at our home record, we have won 10 out of the 16 games played at the Stadium of Light and have not drawn any. In that time, we have also scored 26 goals.

It’s perplexing because we appeared extremely impoverished at home for significant portions of our recent history, but it appears that things have changed today.

The nature of the issue is obscure, but it is one that requires immediate attention. We still have trips to Watford, Southampton, Cardiff, Leeds United, Norwich, West Brom, and West Brom—a rather bleak schedule for us at the moment.