Alex Neil delivers honest verdict on his start as Sunderland manager

Sunderland manager Alex Neil believes he is doing a good job since arriving at the Black Cats to replace Lee Johnson in February.

The hierarchy at the Stadium of Light sacked Johnson following a 6-0 humiliation at the hands of Bolton Wanderers and after two further defeats with a caretaker boss in Michael Proctor in the dugout, Neil was appointed to the role having been out of football for 11 months after his March 2021 departure from Preston North End.

The Scot’s immediate short-term goal is to get the Wearsiders into the play-offs and earn promotion to the Championship through that route, with a top two finish now long-gone.

Whilst he’s not unbeaten as manager of the club, Neil has only lost once in his nine matches in charge, winning four and drawing four to pick up 16 points out of a possible 27.

That return has left Sunderland in seventh position with six games to go, although they have a game in-hand on sixth placed Wycombe Wanderers as of now, and when delivering his own verdict on his job performance, Neil is satisfied with how things are going.

“I think we’ve made a good start,” Neil admitted, per the Sunderland Echo.

Do you know what I think was really interesting about Saturday’s game? And I said it to the staff beforehand. If we didn’t win today, our start would have been deemed to have been a poor one.

“If we did win, it would be deemed to be a decent one, with some optimistic ones maybe saying, ‘That was pretty good’.

“Thankfully, we managed to win, so hopefully we’re in the pretty good mode at the moment and we can try to develop and go on from there.”

The Verdict

Sunderland needed someone to come in and steady the ship following a loss of form not just under Johnson, but the losses under caretaker boss