New Sunderland boss Alex Neil admits he has work to do to get Black Cats into the promotion mix

New boss Alex Neil admits he will have 'a lot of work to do' if Sunderland are to be in the promotion mix at the end of the season.

Neil was appointed as head coach on Friday night and took charge of his first game on Saturday, watching the Black Cats earn a point against relegation strugglers AFC Wimbledon at Plough Lane.

And afterwards he gave an honest assessment of the situation he has walked into, pointing out that the squad is split between inexperienced youngsters and more senior players who have played very few minutes, and he now has only 14 games to find a promotion-winning formula.

"The team is on the back of losing three games on the trot and I've now come in," he said.

"It's a platform in terms of it's a point - we haven't lost - but if we want to be in the mix come the end of the season, we have got a lot of work to do.

"I need to get ideas into them.

"We did 40 minutes yesterday, I spoke to them again today, but it's a lot of information.

"What strikes me is that we had seven players under the age of 22 in that team today.

"There's not a lot of experience there at all.

"Then we have had some experienced players come in, but they have not played any minutes - they are literally going from a standing start.

"Then there are young players who this is their first year [playing regularly] and they look tired.

"We haven't got a lot of options in terms of selection, in terms of changing things, so it's a case of getting the balance right between the lads who are fit and ready to play and also trying to get minutes into the experienced ones because they are key players if we can get them going.

"The difficulty I have got now is that there are really limited games to do that.

"Confidence is a massive thing. There