Alex Neil praised his side's 'excellent' performance in their win against Sheffield Wednesday - admitting the only disappointment is that they did not add more goals. Ross Stewart's goal on the stroke of half-time at the Stadium of Light gave the Black Cats a 1-0 advantage to take to Hillsborough on Monday for the second leg of their play-off semi-final.
The Black Cats dominated the game for around 70 minutes, and could have added further goals with Alex Pritchard hitting the woodwork and Dennis Cirkin heading a good chance over the bar. And while Neil would have liked at least a two-goal cushion to take to South Yorkshire, he was still very pleased with Sunderland's display.
"I thought we were excellent," he said. "It's live on Sky, it's a big game, but the players then have to take that expectation and atmosphere, soak it up, and try to put in a good performance, which I think they did.
READ MORE: Recap Sunderland 1-0 Sheffield Wednesday as it happened
"The only disappointment from our point of view is that we didn't add to the scoreline. From half-time to about 75 minutes, we probably had two or three glorious chances to double the scoreline, and it certainly wouldn't have been any more than we deserved at that point.
"We totally controlled the game in the first half, I would have liked to have created more chances but it is hard when a team sits in as a [back] five. I changed our shape and our strategy for this game from what we have been doing of late and I thought it worked really, really, well - we probably just didn't get the ball in the final third enough to create more chances.
"At half-time the conversation was about the fact that what you don't want to do in the second half is under-perform, because that's the bit that everyone remembers when they leave. People don't remember first halves, they remember second halves, and the last bit of the game.
"What I said to them was 'don't under-perform in the second half because you will leave everybody going away not talking about how well you did in the first 45 minutes'. To be fair to them, for the first half-hour of the second half I thought they were even better [than they had been in the first half] so all credit to them, I thought they were excellent.
"We've given ourselves an advantage now for the second leg."
Neil went with an attacking line-up for the home leg, with Pritchard, Patrick Roberts, and Jack Clarke, all included in his starting XI. He explained: "The difficulty you have with Sheffield Wednesday, teams with experience and quality through the group, they sense weakness.
"What I mean by that is, if you play against them and you don't have a threat at the top end of the pitch, they know that and they play right on top of you. By going really aggressive at the top end of the pitch and being really creative, that would scare them a little bit, put them back in and give us the space to build, and that's exactly what happened."
The goal came when Stewart forced Sam Hutchinson into a mistake, and raced through to score his 25th goal of the season. Neil said: "It was a ball in behind, which we had spoken about.
"The defender delayed a little bit, and Ross just nipped in and took advantage of the situation and got his goal."
The game was watched by a crowd of more than 44,700 - a record attendance for a play-off semi-final - and Neil said his team fed off the energy of the fans. Asked how much energy it gave them, he said: "Loads. Absolutely loads.
"Going to Sheffield Wednesday is going to be doubly difficult because they are going to do likewise. The fans were a credit to the club, and I thought the players were a credit to the club as well."
Sunderland now have a rapid turnaround before heading to Hillsborough for the return fixture, but Neil is confident his side can complete the job and book a place in the Wembley final against either MK Dons or Wycombe. He said: "I'm confident going into every game. I've won in big stadiums, the players have performed extremely well since I have been here, we carry a threat, we are defensively solid, what's not to like?"
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