Jack Ross has urged his players to embrace the challenge of playing away from home during the 2018-19 season.
The Black Cats have already proved they are a force to be reckoned with at home, but their solitary away outing saw them pegged back as Luton Town snatched a point at Kenilworth Road.
After blitzing Scunthorpe United at the Stadium of Light, the Lads are about to embark on their biggest test so far as they tackle consecutive away games against Gillingham and AFC Wimbledon.
But confidence is high according to the Sunderland boss, who has seen improvements each and every time his side have taken to the field.
“Each and every away game is going to provide us with different challenges,” said Ross.
“It’s going to be another good marker in terms of where we’re at within this league and where we can hopefully get ourselves.”
He continued: “It will be a challenging week, but I think it’s one the players will be going into with the best possible frame of mind.
“In every game we’ve played we’ve shown signs of progress and Sunday’s was probably the best one to date.
“I’d have liked to have won that game [at Luton Town], but we still produced an okay performance and we had to be resilient given the atmosphere and environment we went into.
“Gillingham play in a system similar and we’ve had to deal with that, so that helps us in some degree.
“But like every away game this season, there’s an added edge to it simply because of the status of this club and the fans we will take to every game.
“We’re going to have to deal with that when we go away from home and it will be no different again on Wednesday evening.”