Stoke City boss Alex Neil admits he can understands fans frustrations after the Potters were defeated 1-0 by Millwall at the weekend. The former Sunderland boss has not had the same instant success that he did during his time on Wearside, with Stoke 17th in the Championship.
After leaving the Black Cats in August, Neil has won nine, drawn six and lost 13 in charge of the Potters' Championship fixtures. His decision to leave the Wearsiders left a bad taste in the mouths of supporters, but Sunderland have been impressive since Tony Mowbray's arrival.
"It's frustration more than anything else,” Neil told BBC Radio Stoke after the Millwall defeat. “I think they've had one shot on goal and won the game. I feel as if I've re-lived that game here on numerous occasions.
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"With a good win in the week I always feel as though it's one step forward and one back. We had more than enough chances in the first half to get a goal. I thought we started the second half brightly and looked threatening, then we huffed and puffed a bit and found it difficult to break them down.
"It's been a similar story for a number of games - we had chances. We don't have a big six-foot target man at the top of the pitch. I thought at times we were threatening and we had enough to get something out of the game. It's frustrating."
The Potters have been susceptible to slow starts, having conceded in the opening ten minutes of games in four of their last six second tier games. "They are different goals though,” said Neil when asked about conceding early doors.
“That's the frustration. The one at Luton was a second ball that they land on, the one today we give the ball away cheaply and don't deal with the first little bit like we should, then we back off.
"The goal against Swansea is a second phase set play. It's not as if it's a consistent theme of goals where I need to fix that to make sure it doesn't happen, the goals are all different in nature in terms of what they look like."
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