Alex Neil has explained his decision to bring on Luke O'Nien ahead of Bailey Wright when Daniel Ballard limped off with an early injury against QPR. The Black Cats were forced into a change inside the first ten minutes when Ballard had to be helped off the pitch following a late challenge from Albert Adomah, with Neil later revealing that Ballard had gone to hospital and the injury 'didn't look good'.
As soon as Ballard went down, Australia international centre-back Wright began to warm-up but in the end it was versatile midfielder O'Nien who was brought on instead. But Neil says it was the position he needed to fill on the right side of the back three that meant O'Nien got the nod ahead of Wright, who would have been the natural choice had he needed to replace middle centre-back Danny Batth.
"It was really straightforward," he said. "We played a back three and they played a front three, and a narrow front three so for a lot of the game we were man for man.
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"The simple fact is that Danny's strength and Bailey's strength is in the middle of that, organising, and with the lads at the side really mobile and defending one-for-one. Aji [Alese, who was also on the bench] is left-footed so if it was Dennis [Cirkin, who played on the left side of the back three] injured, I'd put him on; on the right side the only option I've got at the moment on the right who I think is comfortable going out into those one-for-one areas is Luke.
"If I was changing the middle man, I'd have put Bailey on."
Sunderland were 2-0 up by half-time, with Ross Stewart setting them on their way on the half-hour and Ellis Simms marking his home debut with a goal five minutes before the break. But in the dying minutes there was a dramatic late twist as Ilias Chair curled a free-kick into the top right-hand corner three minutes from the end of normal time, and then goalkeeper Seny Dieng came forward for a corner injury-time and headed the equaliser.
Neil was understandably frustrated at seeing his side throw away a two-goal lead and have to settle for a point. He admitted that his team tired in the latter stages and said in an ideal world he would have utilised more than the three substitutes he brought on, but pointed out that he had did not have the specialist replacements to cover for those players who were fatigued.
He said: "I was mindful of it [the tiredness] but the difficulty we've got is that we have specialised positions that we don't have cover for - so who do I put on? What was running through your head, what was running through all the fans' heads, was what was running through my head.
"'I need to replace him because he's tired, I need to replace him because he's tiring.' But then I look round [at the bench] and I've got good players but they play in different positions.
"I don't have a like-for-like where I can put him in there if someone's tiring, and that's not much I can do about that."
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