MICHAEL Beale believes his Sunderland team are coming into form at the perfect time and insists he was calm and had no doubts during a troubled start to life on Wearside.

The Black Cats head for lowly Huddersfield Town on Wednesday night looking to extend their unbeaten stretch to four games in the Championship, with Beale's side having come from behind to blow Plymouth away in a stunning second half showing at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

Three defeats preceded the current unbeaten run, with errors off the pitch proving equally as damaging during a turbulent and testing time for Beale after the former Rangers and QPR boss replaced Tony Mowbray in the dugout.

There was no shortage of criticism and the pressure was building on Beale ahead of the visit of Stoke City a fortnight ago, but the Black Cats beat the Potters and have twice come from behind to pick up four points from games against Middlesbrough and Argyle.

Beale took charge during a hectic spell of fixtures and he believes Sunderland are now benefiting from some time on the training pitch, where he's been able to get his ideas across. But rather than take the credit himself, he says the players deserve the praise for the recent turnaround.

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"Maybe I didn't always seem it in front of you guys but I was always calm," said Beale.

"I saw positives at Ipswich and we should have taken points from that game. Then playing Hull at home, I knew 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.

"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 getting 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.

"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?"

Jack Clarke continues to dazzle for the Black Cats but Beale believes his side have shown they're not solely dependent on their star winger.

He said: "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 (Ba) and Paddy (Roberts) 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."