Sunderland boss Jack Ross is pleased with how his side are performing but admits they need to stop conceding early goals.

The Black Cats are unbeaten in League One after seven games, despite falling behind in five of those games.

To make matters worse, on four of those occasions they were a goal down inside ten minutes, whilst they managed to hold out until the 15th minute in the other game.

Clearly, it's not impacting results significantly, with the Wearside outfit showing they are more than capable of bouncing back.

However, it's a trend that Ross wants to end now, with the former St. Mirren boss highlighting to the players what conceding these early goals has done.

"We did a little presentation to the players in the week just to emphasise to them that if you take those first 15 minutes out, we’d be having a really, really good season," he told the Chronicle.

"The stats back that up and it’s good for the players to see that. But they can see it, and they can see that if we can sort that out then we can potentially win a lot of games."

The Verdict

It's quite remarkable that Sunderland have conceded early goals on so many occasions and for it to happen so often means it's not just a coincidence.

Whether Ross needs to look at how they warm-up or tactically set up is open to debate but it's good to see that he recognises the problem.

As he says, they've been fantastic other than that and are picking up results but they can't keep giving themselves a lot of work to do.

Thoughts, Sunderland fans? Let us know in the comments below.