Alex Neil was left 'frustrated' after Sunderland's friendly against Rangers in Portugal was abandoned at half-time due to a powercut. The Black Cats were leading 1-0 at the break thanks to Luke O'Nien's goal just before the half-hour, but as the reassembled on the pitch for the start of the second period the Estadio Municipal de Albufeira was plunged into darkness.
After a delay of around 45 minutes, the announcement came that the game would not be restarting and the match was abandoned. It gave Neil a headache as he had planned to give most of his side a full 90 minutes against Rangers, and a handful of others an hour, and they have now played fewer minutes than expected.
"We'll need to have a think about what we do now," said Neil. "Obviously the lads who came back a bit later after international duty, they were only going to play 60 but the others needed the 90 really.
READ MORE: Sunderland 1-0 Rangers ratings as O'Nien and Pritchard star before the lights went out
"That's certainly frustrating, it puts us behind where we wanted to be. We've got Roma coming up [on Wednesday] and I'll have to have a think about that now as well [in terms of the team].
"It's not great for us. To be honest as well, we played so well in the first 45 against a really strong team, we'd have liked to have seen it through and tried to put two halves together.
"All in all, a frustrating evening."
Neil started new signing Daniel Ballard against Rangers and the Northern Ireland international impressed alongside O'Nien at the heart of defence. And, aside from O'Nien's goal, Sunderland had opportunities to go in at the break with a more comfortable cushion.
Neil said: "I thought we were the better team, scored a good goal and had the better of the opportunities. I can't really remember them having too many opportunities.
"The lads who came back late for pre-season looked sharp, we had some really good passing combinations. Our shape was excellent, we hunted and pressed the ball well as a unit.
"In terms of the minutes we played, I'm really pleased with what we did."
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