Michael Beale explains his big Sunderland striker decision after Coventry City defeat

Michael Beale admits he needs to try and sort Sunderland's striker conundrum after witnessing the team's biggest issue in his first game at the helm on Saturday afternoon.

Sunderland again dominated possession and created a number of chances throughout Coventry City's visit, but were unable to make it count and eventually fell to a bitterly disappointing 3-0 defeat. Beale had planned to field Alex Pritchard as a false nine but was forced to abandon that when the attacking midfielder fell ill on Friday.

Instead of turning to one of the club's four orthodox strikers, Beale instead fielded Abdoullah Ba as the striker. Ba should have put his side ahead when Brad Collins fumbled Jack Clarke's shot into his path, but the youngster could only fire over from close range. Beale said afterwards that he had wanted to try and keep as settled a team as possible, and also suggested that a lack of training time had been part of the reason why he had not used one of the four strikers from the bench.

Eliezer Mayenda was deployed as a second-half substitute but neither Nazariy Rusyn nor Mason Burstow have played a minute since Tony Mowbray's departure.

"The other strikers all played on Monday in the U21 game, which was a chance to watch them," Beale said.

"They then didn't return to training with the group until Wednesday, when they did a light session. Alex Pritchard was going to play, but unfortunately had a sickness bug like Luis Hemir.

"We went with bringing Jobe back in and went with a settled team from last week. I didn't think it worked in the first half, but I thought Abdoullah started the second half quite well. It's been a conundrum prior to me coming into the club for the two coaches that have led the team so far this season, and it's an area coming in where I know that I'm going to have to try to maximise the players that we've got in the building in the short term."

Beale is hopeful that Pritchard will be fit to return to the fold when Sunderland travel to Hull City on Boxing Day.