SUNDERLAND manager Alex Neil admits he’s been attempting to offer up reality checks to people on the current state of the club and that his side have to earn the right to get out of League One.

The Black Cats are on course to earn promotion having finished in the play-offs where they will take on Sheffield Wednesday in the first leg of their semi final tomorrow night at the Stadium of Light. The return tie will be on Monday evening at Hillsborough.

But when it comes to the talk surrounding the game, arguably, this is a fixture that is not befitting of a League One play-off semi final.

It’s the fourth season Sunderland are playing in the third tier of English football following back-to-back relegations down the divisions in 2017 and 2018. Because of the expectation and ambition surrounding the club, many see Sunderland as a scalp in League One who are too big to be playing at that level. Something that Neil hates hearing about and does the team no favours.

“Well, it is a League One club. This is the bit that irritates me” answered Neil when asked about the size of the club.

“People keep telling me we are not a League One club. Yeah? You are in League One. If you want to talk about the infrastructure, the fans base the stadium… are they League One standard? No.

“But the simple fact is that at the moment the club is a League One club.”

The acknowledgement of their current position is something that is important to the progress of the club as Neil continued: “Unless you get a reality of where you are, you don’t know how you can get where you want to go. That is something I have been drilling into people since I came in.

“People say we have got the best squad in the league. I say: no we haven’t because we are sixth. Which means at the moment we are sixth best squad in the league. You need to earn the right to get out of the league. 

“We aspire to be a Championship team, and we have games ahead that can enable us to do that.”

Past events are something that has no bearing on what Neil does in his position in the Sunderland hotseat. As things stand, three games stand between them and a place in League One next season.

The Black Cats decline over the years has been well documented and there has been plenty of historical records and past data dredged back up about their results in the play-offs. Something that is of no concern to the current manager.

Neil continued: “We are talking about something positive to get us out of the league. Then we go back to something that happened ten years ago. Ten years ago doesn’t concern me.”

The manager is just pleased with the job he’s done so far with the players are his disposal as he asked the question: “Has the decline stopped? Erm, I don’t even think about it. Where are we now? In a better place than two and a half months ago. That is an improvement for me, and we want to continue that improvement step by step. The next part is can we beat Sheffield Wednesday?”

Sunderland may have to do that without the help of Nathan Broadhead. The club’s management team will make a late call on the 24-year-old’s fitness after he limped off in the closing stages of last week’s win over Morecambe.