Sunderland defender Wes Brown hoping new boss Martin O’Neill will boost confidence at the Stadium of Light

Sunderland defender Wes Brown is hoping that Martin O’Neill's appointment as manager of the Black Cats will boost confidence at the Stadium of Light.

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O’Neill took charge of the club on Monday following the 2-1 defeat to Wolves that saw the north-east side slip closer to the relegation zone.

Sunderland had led the 1-0 at Molineux through Kieran Richardson, but following Sebastian Larsson's missed penalty, Steven Fletcher stuck twice to secure victory for Mick McCarthy's men, with O'Neill watching from the stands.

“He [O’Neill] has inherited a great team with good quality, we just need to start gelling and winning games,” Brown told the club’s official website.

“When we missed the penalty you could see heads going down and that’s what we don’t need, we needed to stay focused. We were winning the game 1-0, very comfortably I thought.

“But we missed the penalty and within a minute they scored. Suddenly they were attacking us and we got our heads down. We were maybe feeling sorry for ourselves and the rest is history.”

Brown also revealed that O’Neill met the players on Saturday, despite caretaker-manager Eric Black taking control of Sunday’s game at Molineux.

“He [O’Neill] didn’t say much to us on Saturday, he just introduced himself, said hello to everyone. He was at the game but he left most of it to Blackie.”