Dan Neil insists Sunderland's final seven games are not meaningless - and a strong finish to the campaign could see them on the riding on the coattails of the play-off battle right to the end. The Black Cats resumed their Championship campaign after the international break with a fine performance to secure a goalless draw against runaway leaders Burnley at Turf Moor.
And while Sunderland remain in midtable after a run which has seen them win just one of their last seven games, they are not completely out of the play-off picture even though they have a lot of ground to make up in the run-in. To an extent, the pressure is off in the remaining games with Sunderland safe in the knowledge that they are well clear of the relegation struggle and have only an outside chance of elbowing their way into the top six, but Neil says they will not be content to merely coast to the finishing line.
"We do want to bed in young players [during the run-in] and want to to give them a taste, but we are still professionals at the end of the day and we want to finish as high as we possibly can," said the homegrown midfielder, who signed a new contract during the international break which ties him to the club until 2026. "Every single game we are going into it wanting to win.
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"In the last few weeks our performance levels have probably dipped a little bit, and definitely the results. But we've come out of this international break and it [the game at Burnley] is a free hit, but like I said we're all professionals and we want to finish as high as we possibly can in the league.
"We don't want to finish the season with games that mean nothing. We want to be striving to finish as high as we can."
Sunderland dropped out of the play-off places after picking up just one point from four games in mid-February into early March. They then embarked on a four-game run against sides in the top seven, and Friday night's draw at Burnley meant they picked up five points from those fixtures.
Neil said: "I think against teams like [Burnley] this year we've been really good. Obviously we knew how good they were coming into the game and felt how good they were in the second half of the game at home.
"Somebody just told me in there that this was the first clean sheet an opposition has had at this ground this year. Similar to Norwich [where Sunderland won 1-0] the lads put in a massive shift, the shape was really good and we could have even nicked it on the counter attack and had some good chances.
"It was a brilliant all-round performance and on to the next one."
Substitute Amad went closest to winning the game for Sunderland in the second half when his deflected shot came back off the bar, but before that Neil had brought a good save out of goalkeeper Arijanet Muric with a volley from the edge of the box in the first half. Neil said: "I've watched Corry Evans do that a lot and he's always on the edge and hits some bodies on the edge of the box.
"It would have been nice for it to go in but I thought because there was a lot of bodies the keeper might not see it, but he made a good save."
Sunderland looked sharp in the second half and caused Burnley problems, with Neil adding: "I think that was said at half-time. We know how good tactically [Burnley boss] Vincent Kompany is and we saw that at our place.
"I had to kind of give it two or three minutes to work out what they'd changed and I think we worked it out really fast. I thought our press from dead balls was really good all night.
"It's tough to get it off them when they are in free-flow, but when the ball goes dead from goal-kicks, that's our chance to get the ball back and really put a high press on and I thought we did that brilliantly all night. We forced turnovers, forced them to go forward into areas they probably didn't want to pass it to and I thought we were brilliant at that all night."
Lynden Gooch returned to Sunderland's starting line-up for the first time since recovering from the hip flexor injury he suffered in mid-January and which kept him out for eight weeks. The 27-year-old came in at left-back, freeing up Luke O'Nien to move into central defence to take over from Dan Ballard who picked up a hamstring injury while on international duty with Northern Ireland, and Gooch was outstanding, making a series of crucial blocks to preserve Sunderland's clean sheet.
"Brilliant," Neil said of Gooch, who was named man of the match by Sky Sports. "I was just saying to him there when he came in he's been out for a decent period of time and he just slots in wherever, similar to Luke.
"They can play in a variety of different positions and have got good experience, they help all the younger lads around them. He was brilliant and fully deserved his man of the match award."
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