Sunderland’s improvement under Chris Coleman has been forged on the training ground, and the manager says the fresh faces on it have been crucial in upping the intensity.
Although the Black Cats are still capable of throwing in the odd horror show – such as at Sheffield United and Cardiff City – they have looked a lot more organised since the Welshman replaced Simon Grayson as manager.
That comes from the hours spent at the Academy of Light.
“Training’s tough, it has to be – play hard, train easy,” Coleman told the club’s official website. “The harder you train, the more prepared you are.
“We’re definitely seeing improvements, in individuals as well, but then you’ve got to take that into the games at the weekend.
Manager Chris Coleman talks to his players during a Sunderland AFC training session (Image: Sunderland AFC)
“The better prepared you are, the more chance of performing, and the better you perform, the more chance of getting points. That’s how it works, there’s no easy way around it.
“I’ve been a player myself and what you want to do (in training) its not necessarily what you need to do.”
Young players have had more of an opportunity since the change of manager, and six of the starters in the 1-0 win over Hull City were 23 or younger, four of them graduates of the club’s youth system, like substitute Lynden Gooch.
“The good thing with young players is they play without fear,” said Coleman, whose willingness to give inexperienced players their chance was a feature of his time with Wales. “That’s what we’ve need and I think the intensity of our game will improve with them in the team.
“Everyone’s responded very, very well.
“The senior boys have taken on the responsibility of looking after these younger ones and the blend’s really good.
“Of course we need to try and strengthen because we need strength in depth and there have been one or two performances which have been below par but there’s been a lot of good signs. Five clean sheet in 11 games is a good return, and four wins.
“We can get better, we know that, we can improve the numbers (in the squad) but whilst we’ve got what we’ve got , if we can maybe edge our ratio of wins forward a little bit we’ll be in a good place. We’re not far away.
“We’re still in the bottom three so it looks like we’re miles away but we’re not, we’re definitely edging closer.”
The energy and vitality of the play was a feature of the win over Hull but now the club must carry it over into their first back-to-back league wins since November 2016.
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Birmingham City’s involvement in the FA Cup has caused a ten-day wait to do that, but the relegation-threatened sides meet at St Andrew’s on Tuesday.
“We got the points (against Hull) but even sweeter was the fact it was a good performance,” said Coleman. “Credit to the players, I thought they were absolutely magnificent.
“There was a lot of pressure on the game because of where we are and the situation we’re in but I thought they responded brilliantly, absolutely fantastic.
“The atmosphere in the stadium was really, really good – really positive. That really helped us.
“Every game in this league, home or away, is winnable. That’s what’s exciting – and stressful. But you’ve got to win your home games and it’s been an uphill struggle for us because we’ve not been getting points. It means every time you go away there’s even more pressure on you so to even get a point sometimes is not enough.
“So it was good to get that home win and now we’ve got build on it. We’ve had the chance before and not taken it so it’s imperative we do that.”