'Not good enough': Michael Beale's candid verdict on key Sunderland issue - and what needs to change

Michael Beale has admitted that Sunderland's away form is not good enough but insists that performances are not far off where they need to be.

The Black Cats fell to a 1-0 defeat at Huddersfield Town on Wednesday night, having not won on the road since Hull City on Boxing Day. Before that, they not won away since the 3-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday in late September.

Beale says his side have to improve but believes it is a case of fine margins in both boxes ahead of the trip to Birmingham City this weekend. While Sunderland have a very young group, Beale does not necessarily see that as the key issue away from home and certainly not on Wednesday night.

"It's a fact that we're a young team but they've got a lot of experience in the Championship, now," Beale said.

"At the weekend we were praising bringing on a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old to go and get a result. I think it's more just about application. In the first half they pressed down on us and we wanted too much time in midfield, which made it difficult for ourselves. Did we show enough bravery to play forward? They were all the things we talked about at half time and I thought in the second half we were better, we certainly created more opportunities.

"It wasn't our night but we can't keep saying that away from home, our away form isn't good enough for a team that's got the aspirations that we have," Beale said.

"We have to improve it. We're going to have to get better at set pieces in both boxes because they are massively kicking us as the moment. Whatever else happened in the game, we've lost to a set play away from home.

"We have to flip our mentality coming away from home, everyone is going to go for us. It's a league where everyone is going for something, promotion, play-offs or fighting for their lives down the other end. If you look at the form guide, Huddersfield aren't in too bad a place and they'd scored seven in two games, so we knew they'd come at us as they did against Southampton. We spoke about that, and it's fair to say we didn't do as well as we'd have liked in the first half.

"We have to take our chances. We missed big chances against Middlesbrough, at Ipswich we missed a big chance at 1-1 and lost. We're kicking ourselves, we can fix those things. If we're coming away from home and getting outplayed, I think that's a bit different. I didn't think we were outplayed here tonight, I think we didn't execute in the big moments in both boxes and that's on us.

"We've got another opportunity against Birmingham at the weekend, we need to brush this off because teams get promoted having lost games, it's that kind of league. You need to show a lot of mental resilience and stamina and with a young group, it's important we stay positive and go again. I think we should applaud [Matty] Pearson tonight because he's kept one of the best players in the league quiet and not knock Jack, for example, because he's been incredible for us."

Birmingham City beat Blackburn Rovers 1-0 on Tuesday night ahead of this weekend's game.