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.
