Self-confessed 'control freak' Alex Neil goes into tonight's play-off semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday determined to avoid the kind of 'kamikaze football' that cost Manchester City dear against Real Madrid. The Black Cats take a 1-0 lead to Hillsborough for the second leg, with Ross Stewart's goal giving them the advantage after Friday's clash on Wearside.
Sunderland controlled the game at the Stadium of Light for 70 minutes or so, before Wednesday began to apply some pressure late in the game. Neil expects a more open game in the return leg because the Owls know they must start on the front foot if they are to come from behind, and his task is to come up with a formula that ensures Sunderland dictate the game as they did on Friday.
And he cites last week's incredible late turnaround in City's Champions League semi-final against Real, which saw the Spanish giants score two goals in injury-time and another in extra-time to turn a 5-3 aggregate deficit into a 6-5 victory, as an example of what can go wrong when a team loses control. "I want an open game, but I want us to be in control of it," he said.
"I'm quite comfortable in admitting that I am a bit of control freak in terms of matches. If I don't feel that I'm in control, I need to change something.
"Obviously, there's only so much control you can have from the side of the pitch but providing I understand where their threat comes from, where we're vulnerable and how to protect it, and the lads understand all of that, I'm happy. The biggest fear for me was probably the last 10 minutes on Friday, when everyone was tired, nobody can hear you, the fans are all up, I'm trying to get information out on the pitch and people are going where they shouldn't be going - that's the point where you're just hoping that your players do the right things.
"That's the moment where you lose that element of control. What I can control, though, is making substitutions to break the game up at that stage.
"It goes pressure, boom, sub, break it up; pressure, boom, sub, break it up. It just sort of kills the momentum a bit of what they are trying to do at that point. Look at Man City the other night against Real Madrid - that's a perfect example.
"It was under control for 85 minutes and I'm sure Pep Guardiola was sitting thinking 'this is done', then kamikaze football starts happenng, everybody starts running everywhere, and anything can happen at that point. But all you can do is control the controllables, and we have been very, very good in terms of controlling games and what happens next."
Neil switched from the back three he had used towards the end of the regular season to a back four for the first leg of the play-off. It was a decision partly made to counter Wednesday's strengths, partly to take the Owls by surprise, but primarily due to the personnel available for the game, with on-loan Everton striker Nathan Broadhead missing out through injury.
Neil said of the reasoning behind the change: "It was probably a combination of a lot of things, really. The element of surprise for the first game has now obviously gone.
"What I had available played a big part in it. We'd been playing a 3-5-2 but we'd been playing that way because we had two centre-forwards and, certainly for the last game, we didn't have two centre-forwards available.
"You have to pick the best person for the role. What would have ended up happening, if we had gone two up top, is that it would have ended up being a Patrick [Roberts] or an Alex [Pritchard], and I just felt in that type of game it would have been unfair on them to play someone up front who is 5ft-odd competing against big centre-backs.
"Because of the magnitude of the game, it was never going to be a pass-pass-pass-pass-pass, type match. It was always going to be a case of putting the ball forward, fighting battles, winning balls in the middle area. So it would have put them in an environment in an area would it would have been really difficult for them to show what they could do.
"There was a whole host of reasons behind why we changed it, and it was a combination of all those things."
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