Clutching a pint can of Budweiser, Alex Neil pledged to spend two days drinking - and then discuss the complexities of Sunderland in the Championship.
The Scot was a bit emotional: “My biggest fear in football has always been letting people down. That hangs heavy on me. I came here for that scrutiny and pressure. We can’t then let them down. So for two days I will have a very good drink. I will have a hangover for a couple of days. Then I will think about the Championship. They can phone me when I am better.”
Next to the Wembley tunnel, Sunderland players didn't bother to get changed out of their strip, filing on to the team bus for a hotel party. Playmaker Alex Pritchard walked past and Neil bellowed: "What a f***ing player! What-a-f***ing-players..." In the sober light of this week as the Wearside party subsides, Neil will analyse whether Sunderland’s chaotic ownership structure can deliver “the tools” he needs to compete in the second tier.
“Controlling shareholder” Louis-Dreyfus does not own a majority of the shares. The Madrox group of Stewart Donald, Charlie Methven and Juan Sartori remain majority stakeholders, and they have to prove they can lever in more investment... or more likely sell up now they have their Championship club premium.
Neil said: “I want to be at Sunderland. I want to be here, I want to take it forward, and there’s massive scope still for us to go. But what you need to understand is that you’re going to a new level. I want the tools to do the job. There are teams coming down with parachute payments and guys on £100,000-a-week that are scoring 43 goals a season. It’s a tough, tough level.
"I’ve been told a million times we’re not a League One team, but there’s a lot of hard work that goes into getting you to that level, because that level is really tough. I walked in the door and it was, ‘Right, there’s the squad, win games’. And I went, ‘No problem’.
“But when transfer windows open up, and you go to the next level and you’re aspiring to be higher than that level, then that’s very different. There’s got to be investment, and different facets that make you competitive in the next league. If you’re doing a job, I’m sure you want the tools to do that job. I’m no different.
"Whether (the ownership is) split, whether it’s an individual, whether it’s three of them, whether it’s 10 of them, I’m not really bothered. That’s for them to sort out. What I want is to do the best I can for the club. The rest of it is not my problem.”
Neil, on a 12-month rolling contract, wants to stay and speaks of a “bond” since joining in February and going on a 16-game unbeaten run. He concluded: “I am emotional because I wanted to deliver something for them that they have been craving for five years. People love a fallen giant don’t they? They love kicking people when they are down. What we have done is rise. It makes me the proudest person in the world at the moment.”
Difficult talks may lie ahead. Quite how Sunderland turned £890m of Premier League income from 15 seasons in the top flight into a League One club is one of the great tales of waste and mismanagement in football. But finally they are on the up. Not quite “back” and where they want to be long term, but the Championship will do for now.
On Saturday Wembley was a blur of red and white, and Wearside noise to see Alex Neil shake off any burden of past play-off defeats, and six years of decline and stagnation.
Feisty Neil has stirred something. Tactically wise and no nonsense honesty in his player management. Patrick Roberts said of Neil: “He doesn't take any nonsense as you know. He speaks the truth and says it how it is. I think he is huge (to keep the manager). He is the calmest man around the place and knows what to do tactically. He's been fantastic, even with players like me."
Asked if a win would be “transformational”, Neil preferred to see it as a stepping stone. "I’m not quite convinced. To get back to where we want to be as a club, it’s the next stage. I think there’s a bit of optimism around Sunderland which is nice… a bit of anticipation of what is to come. Everyone’s got a better outlook on us as a club.”
That’s an unusual sentiment from a Sunderland manager in the last few years. They’ve started the climb. Consecutive relegations, bumping along for four seasons trying to get out of League One, while always being watched by 30k-plus crowds in the third tier. Parachute payments were snaffled, costs cut, and a £100m-a-year turnover withered to a COVID-hit £10.7m, in their recent accounts.
But they have never lost their core support of a town desperate for their flagship institution to revive. On Friday night, Trafalgar Square was rammed with Mackem fans, dancing in fountains, and letting off red flares. At least 47,000 at Wembley, and whole families traveling down for the weekend to be part of it. They are why Sunderland has continued to matter.
Neil was having none of the historical portents that accompany Sunderland at Wembley. And his side played without the burden of the past. Sharp, positive and not giving an inch early on, academy local lad Elliot Embleton dribbled from his own half to smash through David Stockdale within 12 minutes. Ross Stewart slid home the clincher, his 26th of a magnificent season.
Weighed down by 10 previous trips to Wembley which had yielded just three wins? No chance. So to the FA Cup in 1937 and 1973, and a Football League Trophy last season in front of an empty COVID-restricted stadium, add a club-reviving League One play-off final.
Play-off campaigns have been cruel, but not this one. Three previous Wembley visits and defeat in 1990 against Swindon, penalty shootout heartbreak in 1998 and Michael Gray’s famous penalty miss, and the last minute loss in 2019, both to Charlton. The Mackem fans, and the players who coped with the pressure to deliver, deserved their moment of celebration.
