Alex Pritchard believes Sunderland picked the ideal man to get them out of League One when they brought in Alex Neil as head coach mid-season. The Black Cats sacked Lee Johnson at the end of January after a run that had seen the club win just once in five games, and having slipped off the automatic promotion pace.
But Neil arrived in February and halted the slide, eventually leading the club to a fifth-placed finish and a play-off spot. They saw off Sheffield Wednesday over two legs in the play-off semi-final and will now take on Wycombe in the final at Wembley next weekend with a place in the Championship at stake.
Pritchard was signed by Neil at Norwich City in the Championship in 2016, and when the head coach arrived on Wearside for a reunion the the midfielder was convinced the club had found the ideal man to rekindle the club's promotion hopes. "Yeah, for sure," said Pritchard, when asked whether he felt at the time that Neil was the man to lead the club out of League One.
