The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
Cats board showed no faith in me – neil
FORMER Sunderland boss Alex Neil says a lack of ‘faith’ from the Black Cats board lay behind his shock departure from the Stadium of Light hotseat.
Neil took Sunderland back to the Championship in 2022 after the club had repeatedly fallen short in their bid for promotion, but left Wearside for Stoke City in the early stages of the following season.
The Scot has revealed that he ‘saw his future’ at Sunderland, after taking the reins from Lee Johnson and guiding the Black Cats from League One back to the second tier.
However, it was the ‘lack of faith and long-term security’ from the Sunderland hierarchy regarding his contract that was the catalyst for his shock switch to Stoke.
The 42-year-old told the EFL Debate: “We’d just been promoted after five or six years of trying, and anybody questioning my dedication at that point to Sunderland was crazy because I wanted to be at Sunderland.
“As soon as we got promoted, I wanted to extend my stay and to get a better deal, and to be part of what the club was going to be moving forward because that is where I saw my future – but the fact was as far as they [the Sunderland hierarchy] were concerned, I had signed my deal [in early 2022] and that was the deal I was on.
“To me at that point, they didn’t show me any faith in me, any security in terms of ‘we want you to be the guy who is going to take us forward for the next few years,’ and that was really the key component that drove everything after that.”
Neil has reportedly registered his interest in returning to Wearside following the sacking of Michael Beale, and his own dismissal by the Potters back in December.
An unsuccessful stint as boss saw Stoke slip to 20th in the Championship despite an extensive summer transfer spend.
The former Norwich and Preston boss also hinted at a split over Sunderland’s squad structure, indicating that his ideas on the balance between youth and experience, and those of the ownership and sporting director, were not totally aligned.
When quizzed whether the differences in strategy in that summer window were paramount in his Potters move, Neil said: “They don’t make any promises that they’re going to sign this 30-year-old or this 32-year-old, so there was never any misconception when I walked in that they looked to invest in youth players.
“There was some discussion around that for youth players to progress and to flourish, you do need good, experienced players around them.”
Many supporters have pinpointed a lack of experience – evident in the Southampton defeat, when the average age of the starting XI was 21 – as one of the crucial factors in Sunderland slipping from play-off hopefuls last term to mid-table mediocrity in the current campaign.
Experienced players such as Lynden Gooch, Danny Baath and Alex Pritchard have all departed.
Neil added: “Just now, in my view, they are light on experience.
“They are very, very young – but extremely talented players. But I do believe that you need a couple of dots of experience around that.
“I thought the balance of the team that I picked up was perfect.
“We had Dennis Cirkin, Dan Neil, Jack Clarke, Dan Ballard – you certainly wouldn’t accuse that team of not having a lot of young players in it.
“But equally, Luke O’nien, Corry Evans, Alex Pritchard, Ross Stewart, they were equally as important.”