Neil on key improvement he has made since taking charge of Cats
Alex Neil says improving Sunderland's defensive record was his main priority when taking over as head coach on Wearside, and said he is confident that his side are therefore moving in the right direction.
The Black Cats improved their play-off prospects with back-to-back wins at the Stadium of Light last week, though their at times performances against struggling Fleetwood Town and Crewe Alexandra underlined that is a team still very much in transition under new management.
Sunderland are now unbeaten in five games, and Neil said he is pleased with the progress that represents.
“You can’t not be [happy]," Neil said.
"Even the goal we did concede was an individual error in the last game.
“The one thing I’ve paid attention to immediately is out of the top half, we conceded more than any other team in the league.
"If you want to get out of this league, that ain’t going to happen so we needed to fix that.
“I think we’ve fixed that in the main and then we needed to get the other sides right as well.
"That’s now ten points out of twelve.
"It should have been twelve because the best performance was against Charlton which we didn’t win."
Neil is now hopeful that his progress will be bolstered by a full week on the training ground with his players, having had a demanding schedule since arriving one day before the 1-1 draw with AFC Wimbledon in February.
The Black Cats travel to Sincil Bank on Saturday to face Lincoln City in what will be another key game in their bid to stay in the top six.
The free midweek could allow Nathan Broadhead and Danny Batth to make their return from hamstring and ankle injuries respectively.
“Ideally for me, I’d like to go Saturday to Saturday since I came in so I’ve got a lot of time to work with the players," Neil said.
"I’ve literally had two Tuesday weeks out of three. That’s a lot to take in and there are a lot of moving parts.
“There’s a lot of things that we need to fix but I think we’ve handled them a lot really well and bearing in mind, we’ve lost two key players in that time as well."