Sunderland Head Coach Michael Beale has spoken ahead of his side’s short trip to Middlesbrough next in the Championship, and talked about its meaning to the people of the region, as well as what has been learned from Sunderland’s loss to Newcastle in the Wear-Tyne derby. Daniel Wales reports.
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00:00 The January transfer window has come to a conclusion on Wearside, with three new faces
00:06 in the through the door at the Stadium of Light, hoping to help their new side find
00:11 inspiration on the pitch.
00:14 Sunderland take a trip down the A19 on Sunday to face Michael Carrick's Middlesbrough, who
00:20 have just seen Morgan Rodgers depart for Aston Villa following their League Cup exit away
00:25 at Chelsea.
00:27 Michael Beale spoke on what to expect from them.
00:30 "They've had a long time to stew on that game, haven't they?
00:33 Not playing last weekend, so I'm sure they'll be looking for a response.
00:36 As I say, they're a good team, powerful team, play good football.
00:40 They've got other players other than Rodgers that are obviously good players.
00:43 I don't know where the team is, because they didn't play last week.
00:46 They've got one or two that are back from injury as well.
00:48 So whatever 11 they put out, I think is a really good championship team and it'll be
00:54 a real stone test for us, for sure."
00:57 The fixture will be Beale's second taste of a North East derby in the space of just a
01:01 month following the first Weartine derby in almost eight years back in January.
01:07 That did not go Sunderland's way, so I wanted to know what has been learnt from that experience
01:12 that can be taken into this game.
01:14 "It's really important to the people in this part of the country, our fan base, it's really
01:21 important.
01:22 The North East derby was a sore one, both games have been sore, haven't they?
01:25 So it's important.
01:26 The only way is up in terms of that then, isn't it?
01:28 This weekend in terms of our performance and our energy on the pitch and our commitment
01:32 to the duels.
01:33 Not just our quality with the ball, it's something that our team is known for in terms of some
01:38 of our possession play and our dribbling and our play certainly through the middle of the
01:44 pitch in midfield.
01:45 Everyone knows we're capable of playing good football, but we're capable of winning our
01:48 duels, running hard and tackling.
01:50 The other parts of the game, when the pitches are not so good at this time of year, you
01:55 have to show other qualities as well.
01:57 That's why I was particularly pleased with some parts of last weekend's game, not just
02:02 the play from the front three, because they were involved in all the goals together, so
02:06 I was delighted with them.
02:07 But it was the back four in the midfield behind them I was pleased with as well, so we're
02:11 going to need to bring that this week."
02:13 The reverse fixture at the Stadium of Light saw Borough win 4-0 after Dan Neal was dismissed.
02:19 That will linger fresh in the memory of many on Wearside, and so Beale made clear how his
02:24 players could use that result as motivation in the game at the Riverside.
02:29 "Yeah, each game is different.
02:31 Obviously a new coach and some new players will be involved in this game and we're living
02:35 in a different moment.
02:36 I think it comes down to the penalty boxes as we've seen in other games this year where
02:43 we've been quite ruthless in games and scored goals.
02:46 You might say last weekend was a little bit like that, we took our chances and maybe Stoke
02:50 didn't.
02:51 Maybe in that game it wasn't a fair run of how the game was actually played between the
02:56 boxes but we certainly want to show a better performance this weekend in terms of the final
03:01 outcome."
03:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]