Alex Neil has praised Sunderland's loyal away following, and understands the importance of getting the fans onside ahead of tomorrow's game at Charlton. He was also impressed with Arbenit Xhemajli's league debut on Saturday and is left with somewhat of a selection headache...
FIRST THREE WEEKS
(They’ve been) eventful in terms of just trying to get the lay of the land as much as anything else, trying to understand the players and understand where they are physically and mentally. Obviously understanding the size of the club and all of the dynamics that come with that, because it is different to any other club I’ve managed so far. But really enjoyable as well, it’s been good so far but equally we know we’ve got big games coming up and we need to try and win them.
WIGAN WIN
It was pleasing. I thought to be fair, in parts of the Burton game, probably in the first 30 minutes I thought we were good. I thought in parts of the MK Dons game we were good, but there were certain weaknesses that cropped up in those games that ultimately cost us and I need to find a strategy, certainly between now and the end of the season. I think the biggest difficulty we’ve got at the moment is I know and understand how I want the team to play. We’re not quite there at the moment, so I need to find an alternative just now to make sure it gives us the points that we need- that's the most important thing.
GAME-BY-GAME
I think the difficulty we’ve got is the basics that are normally done in pre-season, so we’re working on a game-to-game basis at the moment in terms of how the opposition work, where we are, who’ve we got fit and that type of thing. But the lads have taken the information on really well, as you saw in the Wigan game, so hopefully we can do likewise this week.
MENTALITY
I think they’ll probably be more destressed than anything else, because obviously they want to win. They’re very competitive and equally if they don’t win, naturally there’s more of an expectation and frustration around it. So the fact we alleviated that pressure, now we can go into the next one with a clear mind on what we’re trying to do.
XHEMAJLI
Really pleased for him. He’s waited a long time to get an opportunity. The simple fact is with the situation we had with Callum, I think it was just the right thing to let him rest and unwind a little bit. Arby to be fair, his attitude’s been first class, so I didn’t have any reservations about putting him in because when you put them in, the next bits up to them. As you can see, especially after the game, it was a really good moment for him to go over to the fans and give his shirt away. It was nice for the lads who were very praiseworthy of him as well after the game. It does (bring people together) and you always want fairness within the group. It’s nice that he got a chance.
FANS
I think the early goal certainly helped us because it got the fans onside. They were brilliant throughout the match, they sang from when the goal went in up until the end of the match, which was great, and when we do have that on our side and get that backing, it’s a really good combination. I’ve spoke to the players regularly about that because we need to understand how to control the crowd and get it onside. The simple fact is as any spectator, you react to what you see, and if what the fans see is good, positive, aggressive willingness to win, even when certain frustrations do come along they’ll give you a little bit of allowance because they understand how hard you’re trying and how you’re going about it. I think the frustration and difficulty we’ve got is when we make a bad decision and make another bad decision, and that frustration just goes. We need to learn how to deal with that quickly.
CHARLTON
It’s going to be a different type of game. They’ve been in a difficult run of late but they have played four of the top five teams. So it’s been a real tough run of fixtures for them and they’ve had some injuries. We just want to make sure that we go down there and we try and take what we did at Wigan and replicate it down there.
INJURIES
We’ve got a couple coming back into contention so that’s nice. It gives us more competition for places which is good, and some of the lads coming back are looking sharper than I thought they would have, considering the amount of time they’ve been out. So that’s pleasing and it only strengthens us between now and the end of the season.
