Elliott Dickman admitted his side must sharpen in the final third if they are to collect more points this season.
Sunderland under-23s were defeated 2-1 at home to West Ham United this afternoon, in a game which saw Duncan Watmore clock a further 70 minutes on his road to recovery.
Toni Martinez opened the scoring with a cushioned header on 20 minutes before he later fed Martin Samuelsen who stabbed home to double the visitors lead.
Watmore continued to stream forward for the Black Cats as they searched for a route back into the game, and that came with 36 minutes on the clock - Luke Molyneux rammed the ball past Nathan Trott’s near post after tidy play down the right flank.
Sunderland lay siege to West Ham’s goal after that, but they were unable to make one of their chances count as they endured a frustrating defeat on home soil.
Speaking post-match, Dickman shared his frustrations.
"I was disappointed with our performance in the first half because I thought we were a bit hesitant in our play," he said.
"I thought we were taken back by the way West Ham played and that put us on the back foot and obviously they have got some good players who caused us some problems.
"We were really disappointed with our first-half performance, we weren't anywhere near the standard or the calibre we expect but in the second half we were good.
"We created some chances, we should've scored more goals than what we did. We worked the goalkeeper better in the second half than what we did in the first half so as the old football cliche goes it was a game of two halves."
