Callum Styles sends ‘clinical’ message to Sunderland team-mates with play-off hope still alive

Callum Styles reckons Sunderland’s training needs to “step up a gear” so that the team can take that into the next match at Norwich City. The 23-year-old Barnsley loanee finally made his Black Cats debut in the 2-1 home defeat to Swansea City on Saturday.

He replaced the injured Jack Clarke as interim head coach Mike Dodds opted for four changes in total, with Jenson Seelt, Abdoullah Ba and Nazariy Rusyn all recalled to the starting XI for the suspended Dan Ballard, Mason Burstow and Romaine Mundle.

The visitors completely dominated the first half and led 2-0 after 28 minutes before an improved second half from Dodds’ team ended with Luke O’Nien giving the hosts hope in the 77th minute, only for the team to lose for the third game in a row.

It was hugely damaging to the club’s play-off hopes as they are now eight points adrift of sixth place with 12 matches to play.

Styles was happy to pull on the Sunderland shirt for the first time and said: “I was pleased to make my debut. It was a really good turnout again with the fans. Obviously the result wasn’t what we wanted in the first half but we responded well in the second half. But we have to push on and go again.

“They [Swansea] came and pressed us well. I feel like we could have done a lot better in certain situations. But again we responded well and could have had a few goals ourselves and we’ve got to be more clinical.”

What the players do on the training ground is a big thing in Styles’ mind and he added: “The training has got to step up a gear and we have to take that into the game on Saturday [Norwich]. I feel like if we are going to do it on the training pitch and keep the standards high there, then we’ve got a hell of a chance on Saturday.”

Regarding his own situation, having signed for the club only to have to have an appendix operation, he said: “It’s been a while since I’ve been on the pitch. It’s quicker than we thought I’d be back so I was just happy to get on the pitch. Sixty minutes is what we wanted at least and yes, hopefully there’s some more minutes to come and hopefully a lot more wins which we need as a team.

“And hopefully that starts next Saturday. We have just got to win as many as possible and we’ve kind of got to just, not forget, but pick the bits out we need to improve on and then go again.”