MICHAEL BEALE has challenged his Sunderland players to produce a positive reaction to Saturday’s collapse at home to Coventry City, after admitting his first game as head coach was an “eye-opener”.

Having crashed to a 3-0 defeat to the Sky Blues at the weekend, the Black Cats return to action this afternoon when they head to the MKM Stadium to take on Hull City.

Sunderland unravelled in dramatic fashion at the weekend, with their problems on the pitch being accompanied by an increasingly mutinous mood in the stands, with a significant section of the Stadium of Light support chanting their support for Beale’s predecessor, Tony Mowbray.

The newly-installed head coach can understand the fans’ frustrations, and has urged his players to prove their mettle when they head to Humberside for their Boxing Day game.

“We have to respond to what happened at the weekend,” said Beale. “That was a big eye-opener for everyone. It was certainly an eye-opener for me coming in. A lot will be written about me coming in, and I get that. I’m happy to take what happened (against Coventry), but there’s got to be a response within our dressing room.

READ MORE:

“The Championship is a ruthless league where you play every three days, and we can’t have a hangover. We don’t have time for it. We need to dust ourselves down, and we need to show a different face at Hull, for sure.”

Hull also lost at the weekend, going down 3-2 at Bristol City on Friday night, but the Tigers remain three points and three places ahead of Sunderland in the Championship table.

After taking on Liam Rosenior’s team this afternoon, the Black Cats head to South Yorkshire on Friday night to face a Rotherham United side that currently sit at the foot of the table.

Two away games in the space of four days represents a significant challenge for a Sunderland side that are set to be without Niall Huggins for a lengthy spell after the defender was stretchered off the pitch in the closing stages of Saturday’s defeat.

“They’re two huge away games we’ve got coming up,” said Beale. “They’re against good teams, and teams that have things going on. There’s a new manager come in at Rotherham (Leam Richardson), and Liam Rosenior is doing an excellent job at Hull.

“We played against Coventry, and I was looking at them as a team who could potentially stop us from getting to where we want to get to this season. Hull are definitely in that bracket as well. They’re coming off a disappointing result at Bristol, but the league is so up and down.”