New boss Alex Neil admits he will have 'a lot of work to do' if Sunderland are to be in the promotion mix at the end of the season.
Neil was appointed as head coach on Friday night and took charge of his first game on Saturday, watching the Black Cats earn a point against relegation strugglers AFC Wimbledon at Plough Lane.
And afterwards he gave an honest assessment of the situation he has walked into, pointing out that the squad is split between inexperienced youngsters and more senior players who have played very few minutes, and he now has only 14 games to find a promotion-winning formula.
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"The team is on the back of losing three games on the trot and I've now come in," he said.
"It's a platform in terms of it's a point - we haven't lost - but if we want to be in the mix come the end of the season, we have got a lot of work to do.
"I need to get ideas into them.
"We did 40 minutes yesterday, I spoke to them again today, but it's a lot of information.
"What strikes me is that we had seven players under the age of 22 in that team today.
"There's not a lot of experience there at all.
"Then we have had some experienced players come in, but they have not played any minutes - they are literally going from a standing start.
"Then there are young players who this is their first year [playing regularly] and they look tired.
"We haven't got a lot of options in terms of selection, in terms of changing things, so it's a case of getting the balance right between the lads who are fit and ready to play and also trying to get minutes into the experienced ones because they are key players if we can get them going.
"The difficulty I have got now is that there are really limited games to do that.
"Confidence is a massive thing. There is huge expectation on these players in terms of winning matches - and rightly so because of the size of the club - but we also have to look at the kids themselves and where they are in their development.
"I think this is the most games Ross Stewart has played in a season, but we still have another third of it to go so it is tough for him.
"I though he looked a bit jaded and fatigued today, and that's why I took him off because we need to try to protect these boys and freshen them up mentally and physically for the games coming up."
Asked whether he was now looking at securing a play-off place rather than an automatic promotion spot, he said: "Every time I go in anywhere, I focus on the next game - I don't look too far ahead, because the simple thing is that we need to win the next game.
"We simply have to try and win every game.
"We made aggressive substitutions today to try and win the game, we took Stewart off and it meant we would be struggling height-wise but it was a risk I was prepared to take because I'm not here to draw or to be cautious.
"When Patrick [Roberts] came on, you could see how few minutes he's got - he's got loads of quality, but how do you bring that out now with only 14 games left?"
Sunderland fell behind to a controversial penalty inside the opening 20 minutes, with Callum Doyle penalised for a handball and Luke McCormick - who was later sent off for a second bookable offence - converting.
But Alex Pritchard equalised with a stunning free-kick before half-time to earn a point.
Neil said: "I thought their penalty was extremely harsh. To give any penalty from half-a-yard or one yard away...
"The ball did hit his hand but it certainly wasn't intentional by any means, and it [the ball] wasn't travelling towards goal so he wasn't making himself bigger to stop a goalbound effort.
"Pritch produced a moment of quality, as he did last week, for us.
"But we were a bit disappointed in the naivete of of our play at times. There were mistakes and errors made that you wouldn't expect.
"There were decent parts where we had opportunities - Pritch slipped Ross Stewart through and he should probably have hit it with his left foot rather than trying to come back inside, the cutback for [Jay] Matete that he put over the bar, and the header from Bailey Wright at the end which went over.
"There were moments there, but not enough moments for us.
"I don't know if it is fatigue or a lack of fitness, but in the last 20 minutes when it became end-to-end, that should suit us with the quality we have got but it didn't look like we had enough legs to get about the pitch and look really dangerous on the break.
"I thought Alex was probably the one bright spark we had today in terms of being creative.
"We've got quality but we are young and naive in certain areas of the pitch.
"We need to get as much game knowledge into the younger ones without overloading them, so that they can deliver the best they can, but equally get our quality players on the ball and try to make them make a difference."
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