Alex Neil has been impressed with Corry Evans' defensive qualities, and spoke about recent criticisms of the Sunderland captain.
JUDGEMENT
"I've walked in the building with no exposure to what's happened previously, no pre-conceptions as to what's gone on, and judged purely on what I've seen in front of me."
VERY GOOD
"From what I've seen in front of me, Corry Evans has been very good for us. There have been a couple of games at home, and this aimed very much at us as a team and not just Corry, have not moved the ball [as well] and been as good as we'd have liked."
V GILLINGHAM
"But I think that in certain games he has performed very well, and on Saturday he was excellent for us. Every time they tried to counter, he snuffed it out at source. And sometimes you don't see that from the outside because when it's a structural thing, if you're in the right place at the right time, you don't then need to rush back and make a tackle. You don't need to cover ground and nick the ball off someone, because every time the ball comes out he mops up with ease and keeps recycling the ball."
LINCOLN
"At Lincoln he was always available for the ball, and they're the bits that can go a little but unnoticed. At this stage of this season, that experience and know how with the external pressure that's on the team, that calming influence can be really important."
MORE ATTACKING
"Since we've been a bit more defensively solid I've focused more on how we build and what our rotations look like at the top end."
FULL BACKS
"Against Gillingham for example, our full backs were quite cautious in the first half, so we spoke about hitting the byline more and that changed the dynamic of the game. Particularly when Goochy came on, he did that three or four times, hung a couple of crosses up to the back post and cut one across for Ross where the defender makes a good cross."
CHALLENGES
"We doubled up down the sides much better, hence the reason why we made better chances. So it's definitely been a point of focus, however every single game in this division is a different challenge. This game is going to very different, so our focus has been different again this week."
