'We have to...": Michael Beale explains Sunderland progress and sends message ahead of key games

Michael Beale is hopeful that his Sunderland side are beginning to show the results of his work on the training ground as they look to build momentum at Huddersfield Town on Wednesday night.

The Black Cats have taken seven points from the last nine, easing the pressure that had built on the club's head coach as a result of the defeat to Hull City. Beale insists he had seen positive signs even in those defeats but believes there are real signs of progress, now.

Particularly pleasing for Beale is that his side have come from behind in their last two fixtures to take something from the game.

"They're really good signs," he said.

"I prefer not to have to come from behind, obviously, but they're good signs. We have to work on consistency across the 90 minutes. There are still loads of areas we want to improve and have to improve but what we have done is show we can score goals from more than just Jack.

"Midfielders are chipping in, other forwards are chipping in, it's the right time of the season and we're becoming a more rounded team. Becoming a more rounded team with more threats, does that give Jack and Abdoullah and Paddy more space?

"That's important and something we've spoken about and worked on. We're not there yet but we're certainly in a pleasing place. After those two results [against Hull and Ipswich], 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.

"We were going through a training process," he added.

"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 going 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. 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?"