Neil: We were by far the better team – but I couldn’t celebrate!
Alex Neil admits he did NOT celebrate Sunderland’s winning goal after his frustration with their sloppy play against Shrewsbury Town, but HAS praised his players for again showing their resilience to seal a vital win.
The Black Cats raced into an early 2-0 lead through Elliot Embleton and Nathan Broadhead, but a dismal spell either side of half-time left the scores level with minutes to play.
Broadhead’s last-gasp header means that Sunderland have now won 10 points in the last 10 minutes of games under Neil.
The head coach felt the first 40 minutes of the game were the best of his tenure, but the frustration of what followed was clearly still fresh in his mind after the game.
“I think you could see the best and worst of us today,” Neil said.
“The first 40 minutes was as good and as clean as we've moved the ball probably all season, to be honest. We moved it with a real tempo and they couldn't get near it.
“A sloppiness crept in about five minutes before half-time, too many people taking too many touches, complicating their game trying to show how good they are.
“What happens with this is they then get that sniff, that sense that they can get something out of it.
"I warned the players at
half-time, that for 15 minutes they needed to kill the game, stop that momentum by winning second balls and battles.
“We got beat up for 20 minutes, that's the be-all and end-all.
"It wasn't a structural problem at all – in other games here I've changed the shape, but here I didn't because you could see at the end when we were totally dominant, the game hadn't changed. We just didn't win enough first or second balls, which was really odd because we've been strong at that.
“But, what we do have is a real resilience, determination, a fitness level now and a bit of quality to go and win the match.
“Listen, in the end I thought we deserved to win the game. Other than a really poor 20 minutes, we were by far the better team.”
Neil was reluctant to be too critical of his players, who he said have been ‘excellent’ for him.
"I didn’t even celebrate the goal at the end,” Neil said.
"I was really disappointed in that 20 minutes because it’s the first time we’ve been beaten up, and that’s the worst thing for me, watching my team be beaten up.
“They needed to find a solution to win their headers and second balls. I had Danny Batth warming up, but I was reluctant to bring him on to win a header. It was disappointing I needed to bring a centre-back on to win a header because they couldn’t compete well enough. The lads have performed extremely well for me since I’ve been here, so I don’t want to be overly critical. Sometimes, it happens.
"They threw caution to the wind, and in that spell, you need to be strong and resilient. But as soon as they scored, they sank back, we flooded forward and that’s the game. We got there in the end.”