Sunderland manager Alex Neil makes ‘demanding’ verdict on supporters

Alex Neil has revealed what his first impressions of Sunderland supporters are in an interview with Sunderland club podcast. 

The Scotsman has been in charge of eight games since arriving at the club in February and will be hoping to secure a top six spot in the coming weeks.

He’s slowly starting to win supporters over after a couple of unconvincing performances, but now results are improving, fans have started to warm to him.

Speaking to SAFC Unfiltered, the clubs official podcast, Neil gave his first impressions on Sunderland supporters, saying: “I think there’s probably been so many disappointments in the past that they maybe find it difficult to get their hopes up.

“If I’m being brutally honest, I think that all they’ll care about is getting out of this league first and foremost, then they’ll want to start talk about developing.

“They’ve been great, particularly away, we went to Wigan and scored early and they were with us all the way. Are they demanding? Yeah, rightly so because the club isn’t where it should be and that’s certainly not anything to do them.”

Sunderland currently find themselves in 7th place, two points behind Sheffield Wednesday in 6th.

The Verdict

Sunderland supporters are certainly demanding, however years of mismanagement upstairs, poor results on the pitch and falling quickly from the Premier League will do that.

Every set of supporters deserves a manager who is honest and Neil is certainly that, and he will work harder than anyone to ensure they get behind his team.

With performances slowly improving and Neil’s ideas slowly becoming ingrained into the players, results will start to follow on but they should remain patient should a top six finish not be achieved.

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