It’s all about the minutes, says Neil
ALEX Neil says the team he fielded at Dundee United offers few clues as to his line-up for the opening day of the season, insisting he is still focused on building up players’ minutes.
The Black Cats boss made only two substitutions in the 2-0 win at Tannadice but rather than taking that as a sign of a settled side, Neil says it was a case of giving nine players the full 90 minutes.
And tomorrow’s game at Bradford City will see more players stepped up to a full 90, with the likes of Luke O’nien, Elliot Embleton, Jack Diamond, Ross Stewart, and Bailey Wright, among those who have yet to complete an entire game.
“That team that I picked at Dundee United doesn’t have any bearing on what the first team of the season will be,” said Neil.
“What it was, was that five lads – six including Patto [goalkeeper Anthony Patterson] – played 90 minutes in the last game against Roma, and that’s now nine lads who have played 90 minutes in this game, and the rest of the lads will play 90 minutes on Tuesday.
“That will be everybody ticked off 90 minutes, and then we’ll have two more games until the start of the season, which is good, so we can top each of them up.
“Come the start of the season, broadly across the board, they should really be
pretty much equal or as close to that as we can.”
Of the outfielders, Lynden Gooch, Danny Batth, Carl Winchester, Jay Matete, and Jack Clarke, all completed 90 minutes against Roma, while Trai Hume, Daniel Ballard, Dennis Cirkin, Corry Evans, Dan Neil, Patrick Roberts, Alex Pritchard, and Leon Dajaku did so at Dundee United.
Patterson is the only man to have played two full games so far, and it remains to be seen whether Neil opts to give Jacob Carney some gametime at Valley Parade.
Following the friendly at Bradford, Sunderland travel to Accrington Stanley on Saturday and then round off their pre-season preparations at Hartlepool United on Monday, July
25.