With the arrival of Alex Neil as new SAFC gaffer, we caught up Dave Seddon who covers his former club Preston for the Lancashire Evening Post…
For a second time Sunderland are getting a former Preston North End manager as their new boss. When Simon Grayson left PNE to take up a post at the Stadium of Light in July 2017, it was Alex Neil who replaced him at Deepdale. Now four-and-a-half-years later it is Neil taking the Black Cats job. Still only 40, Neil has managed Hamilton Academical, Norwich City and Preston. It's 10 months since he was dismissed by North End, time he has spent refreshing himself and continuing to learn from afar.
He was full-on at PNE, 24/7 immersed in the job. Neil is very much a tracksuit manager; at Preston he led all the training sessions and that is where he was at his best. When not the pitch, he would spend hours analysing future opponents. If there was one criticism of him at Preston, it was him seemingly adjusting PNE's team and approach to counter the opposition rather than believing in what his players could do.
Neil's first season at North End was the most successful, with a seventh-place finish. They were in play-off contention going into the final game, won that but results elsewhere meant they didn't it. His football that season was high pressing aggressive with lots of movement from his attacking players in his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation. Based on the profile of players in Sunderland's squad, it seems that Neil will once more play a high-intensity, fluid style in the same formation. Two seasons later, Neil guided North End to the top of the Championship briefly but they were to fall away.
The reality of the finances at Deepdale was that kept players had to be sold along the way. Jordan Hugill, Greg Cunningham, Callum Robinson, Ben Davies, Ben Pearson, all went for good money. He found that frustrating although was realistic. Again, he'll be working under financial restrictions at Sunderland, which draws more comparisons between the two jobs.
There were some big success stories when it came to Neil developing and working with players. He turned Ben Davies into a top class defender, having inherited a young lad who had been out on loan several times. Skipper Alan Browne is a different player to the one which Neil found when he came in. Ben Pearson developed hugely under Neil, as did Callum Robinson. This bodes well for young Dan Neil, who while showing plenty of talent, still needs a talented coach to give him attention and help develop further.
Neil will join Sunderland refreshed and ready to work. He had run out of steam at North End when the plug was pulled on him last March, taken them as far as he could. He had been looking for a Championship job but this challenge will excite him. Neil speaks well in press conferences, often going deep into tactical detail. He will demand a lot from the players buy they will enjoy working under him.
