Neil and pray

NEW BOSS SUNDER THE COSH

ALEX NEIL got an idea of the task in front of him at Sunderland as his new side worked hard to earn a point at struggling Wimbledon.

Barely 24 hours after Neil (right) took over as manager, he saw Sunderland end a three-match losing run – even though they still dropped points as they look to push on in their promotion bid.

Luke McCormick gave Wimbledon the lead from the spot before Alex Pritchard equalised with a brilliant free-kick.

“I’m certainly impressed by the attitude of the players so I don’t think that is in question,” said Neil.

“We need to get more work into them to be better than today. We did 40 minutes yesterday and I talked to them today and that is a lot of information going into them.

“But we have a gap between experienced players who have come in but not had many minutes and some young lads who are in their first season and look a bit tired.

“We don’t have a lot of options with selection right now.”

Wimbledon took the lead through a disputed penalty after 20 minutes. Jack Rudoni’s attempted cross was blocked by the arms of Callum Doyle and McCormick tucked away the spot-kick.

They went close again four minutes later when a corner found its way to Sam Cosgrove whose goalbound shot was well clawed away by Anthony Patterson.

But Sunderland were level in the 35th minute as Pritchard floated a free-kick from 25 yards over the wall and into the corner of the Wimbledon net.

Moments later, Wimbledon had claims for another penalty as Rudoni went down.

The second half became messy as the tackles grew increasingly spiteful with ref Simon Mather handing out 13 cards.

At one point both benches cleared after Sunderland’s Jay Matete upended Paul

Osew as he raced clear down the touchline. Wimbledon looked more likely to force a winner. Ayoub Assal had an effort pushed away by Patterson, although at the other end Matete fired over as he stretched to get on the end of Dennis Cirkin’s cross.

The hosts were reduced to 10 men in the 90th minute when McCormick received a second yellow card for a wild lunge and Wimbledon head coach Mark Robinson will see it as points dropped in their bid to avoid relegation.

He said: “We are a bright, young, exciting side playing against a big club and, if they continue to show that endeavour, the points will come.

“There is no point making them anxious because of the position we are in, we just have to stay calm and keep standards high.”