Chris Coleman had nothing but praise for his players following Saturday’s 2-0 win over Burton Albion.
The Black Cats worked their socks off to ensure a return to winning ways and the floodgates finally opened in the final ten minutes, as James Vaughan and George Honeyman struck to clinch a long-awaited three points.
Burton were combative and hard-working throughout and, at times, they tested Coleman’s backline, but they held firm and took their chances to take full advantage of a first clean sheet of the season.
And speaking post-match, the Sunderland manager heaped praise on his players before looking ahead to the next challenge.
“It gives us something work from, something to build on,” said Coleman.
“There’s been so much disappointment and I see it on the players – they’re waiting for something to happen and something to hang on to – and as soon as they get something that rubs off on the supporters which it did today.”
He continued: The support we had here was absolutely brilliant, absolutely fabulous.
“It was a little first step and there are many more steps we need to take, but it was a good start and a good win as I felt we deserved the three points.
“It’s fantastic [to keep a clean sheet] and that’s down to the players because I can’t say we’ve worked too much defensively, we’ve mainly worked offensively as we need to score more goals.
“To score twice and keep a clean sheet is fantastic but we also stayed focussed in critical stages of the game when Burton were gambling and sending bodies forward.
“it’s not just about fighting and scrapping, of course that’s there but I’ve said all along we need to be street smart – football smart – in our decision making and we were better at that today.”
