ALEX NEIL has revealed that Sunderland’s players have been practising taking penalties on a daily basis in the build-up to Saturday’s play-off final at Wembley.

This weekend’s play-off final against Wycombe will be settled on the day, with extra-time and penalties scheduled to take place if the game finishes in a draw after 90 minutes.

In the last week, both the FA Cup final and Europa League final have been decided on spot-kicks, and different managers have different approaches when it comes to the value of practising penalties on the training ground.

Some bosses argue it is pointless rehearsing when it is impossible to replicate the pressure that goes hand-in-hand with a major shootout, but Neil disagrees.

The Scot saw the benefit of taking penalties as part of a daily training routine during his time as manager of Hamilton Academicals, and has been putting his players through their paces from 12 yards on a regular basis this week.

Neil said: “We’ve been doing penalties after training every day for over a week now. Just in case.

“I was at Hamilton, and we ended up practising penalties fairly regularly be default really. Because the training was so competitive, it felt as though every day we’d finish on a draw and so we’d finish with penalties.

“That season, we won two penalty shoot-outs and ended up getting promoted, so in the long run it benefited us, even though admittedly it wasn’t really by design.

“That seemed to be the difference to get us over the line though, so we’ve definitely been working on it here, in this week in particular.

“I know you can’t replicate Wembley, and you can’t replicate the pressure, but what you can replicate is technique. You can replicate being comfortable standing in front of a goalkeeper, picking your side, and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, we’ve been doing a bit of work on that.”

Saturday’s game will see Sunderland experience VAR for the first time, with the system having been introduced for the play-off final despite not having been used in any other League One match this season.

Neil will not be instructing his players to do anything differently just because VAR is in operation, but accepts he might have to delay his reaction if Sunderland score.

He said: “It’s there, and the only I’ll probably do is make sure I don’t celebrate too much if we score in case it gets taken away. I’m not sure I could handle that sort of disappointment. I’ll maybe have to rein myself in a bit until it’s confirmed if we do get a goal.

“I didn’t have any discussions about them using VAR, but provided the fair decisions are made, then whether they’re in our favour or not, I don’t think you can have any complaints.

“The only grumble I’d probably have is that I don’t like it when somebody’s armpit is offside by a millimetre and it’s given as offside. I do think there needs to be an element of grace somewhere in that kind of circumstance.”