Michael Beale issues this upbeat message to Sunderland players ahead of Championship return

Michael Beale has urged his Sunderland players to build on the positives of their recent league form as they look to put a bitterly disappointing derby day behind them.

Beale had said he and his players would have 'an honest conversation' about what went wrong and where they fell short as a group in the 3-0 defeat to Newcastle United, and says he has been heartened by the response to that chat on the training pitch.

Sunderland return to Championship action with a difficult trip to second-placed Ipswich Town, with fellow play-off contenders Hull City then travelling to the Stadium of Light next Friday night. Beale says he is under no illusions as to the scale of the challenge but insists the players should be attacking the fixtures with positivity.

"Last Saturday was a disappointing day for everyone, fans, players and staff," Beale said.

"But it was a big learning day for the team, and the response in training has been very, very good. We have to focus now, we've got a fantastic game against a team doing really well.

"Our focus is back on these 20 league games now and it needs to be, because we're going away to a team second in the league. We've had a nice chat as a group and to be fair, the response in training has been fantastic. They're a group that likes to train anyway, they're a young, buoyant group. In that game there were a lot of things that were disappointing for us but it's feedback. It's not the level we're competing at every week but it's the level that we want to be competing at every week. It was clear that there's a gap and we've got to keep working and moving forward.

"In the league we play in, we've won four of our last seven and we're unbeaten in three," he added.

"We've now got a big game in front of us and another against Hull. These games against the teams around us are worth that little bit more than the three points because of that knock-on effect. Alex Pritchard got his first goal against Preston, Nazariy Rusyn got his first goal as well which was really important to the club, so we're getting more people contributing and adding to those who've been our goalscorers. We've kept two clean sheets in three league games, so there were positive signs for us.

"We know we've got 20 games and everything is to play for, and we ultimately want to get back into the play-offs and go one step further than we went last year. Of course, there's a lot of teams who want that and it's tightly packed, so it's important we pick up points in every single game."

Ipswich Town come into the contest without a win in five Championship fixtures, but many of their recent games have been against fellow promotion rivals and they have lost only once in that run to Leeds United.