Manager Chris Coleman has been reflecting on Sunderland’s loss to Reading last weekend and he knows the side have to have more confidence in the final third.
Reflecting on the three one defeat at the Stadium of Light in his first home game in charge since replacing Simon Grayson, Coleman told the Official Site this week with the players back in training that we should take the positives from the game, especially our performance prior to going down to ten men with Callum McManaman’s second yellow card, but when we get in the final third players need to have the bottle to shoot on sight and make something happen for us.
McManaman`s second yellow card for handling the ball deep into first-half stoppage time turned the tide in the Royals favour.
‘It is another home game that we haven`t won. We can talk about it for as long as we want but all we can do is get back to the training ground and start working towards the next game which is next weekend and try to get a performance to make sure we build on the last two games where there were some very good signs.’
The former Welsh manager went on to say.
‘And there were some good signs against Reading up until we had a man sent off. After that we were up against it and Reading went on to deservedly win the game. Joel is positive, he is direct, and I think he gave us a bit of life. He is very quick, and he didn`t have any fear. When we are 3-0 down it is a huge mountain for us to climb.’
Coleman knew that confidence was key, especially in the final third as there were opportunities we wasted because players wouldn’t shoot.
‘We got a goal and then we had one or two situations where for whatever reason we were reluctant to pull the trigger. We shouldn`t be. We should have a shot, but we don`t we seem to be always looking for that perfect moment which never comes. There are a lot of things for us to think about, the players have been here many, many times. So how do we get away from that and break that? That`s what we need to focus on as soon as we get back into training.’
