Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray hopes the second half of the Black Cats Championship campaign will be an exciting one.
Mowbray and co played a friendly out in Dubai this week against Al-Shabab, which they won 1-0 courtesy of an Amad Diallo first-half goal.
While Sunderland have been away on a warm weather training camp, they return to action next weekend to play Millwall at the Stadium of Light.
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Sunderland's return to the Championship has been an ultimately promising one. While they currently sit 15th heading into the second half of the season, the table is so congested that a win over Millwall could catapult them up to 10th place.
The Black Cats goal this term should always have always been to aim for survival, so that they can continue to build towards a push for promotion. And Mowbray feels hopes that the second half of Sunderland's season will be filled with plenty of excitement.
"We're just trying to lay some foundations down for them," said Mowbray. "I've been here a few months, and I didn't think the team was broken really, there were lots of positive. My first game at home to Rotherham we won 3-0, Ross Stewart scored two goals and the team looked pretty good to me.
"Over the last few weeks I've been a lot more vocal around the team in whats expected, what we have to do, where we have to go, how we have to play, and hopefully we'll create the identity of a team that plays on the front foot, is aggressive, but is also good with the ball and can hurt the opposition and has lots of good attacking options.
"We've obviously been a little short of attacking options over the last few months, but hopefully they're coming back. Ross is nearly there and Ellis [Simms] of course is doing exceptionally well and working really hard and getting his fitness up. I'm hoping it's a really exciting second half of the season."
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