A second win of the season, a hard-fought away victory, a first clean sheet of the campaign, and another goal for Ross Stewart. Yet it was typical of Alex Neil to keep both feet planted very firmly on the ground and to cast a critical eye over what most Sunderland fans considered a pretty good day's work.
The first question in his post-match press conference invited him to express pride in the way his side had performed against a dangerous Stoke City team, and was greeted with a laundry list of their shortcomings in the first half. "I think the only positive we took from the first half was that we scored," he said.
"I thought we were really disappointing, we didn't really do anything that we have done well for a long period of time - we didn't compete well, we didn't land on second balls well enough, we didn't use the ball well enough."
