Alex Neil admits he is between a rock and a hard place having to decide whether to field players who are jaded and need a break, or others who are not yet up to match fitness.
The new Sunderland head coach has walked into a storm on Wearside, taking over a side that had won just one of its last seven games and that had slipped way off the automatic promotion pace.
And after drawing his first game in charge at AFC Wimbledon and now losing 2-1 against MK Dons in his first home game at the helm, the crisis shows no sign of easing.
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Sunderland have now lost four of their last five games and are seventh in the table - outside the play-off places on goal difference.
Neil spoke about the problems with the squad he has inherited after the game at Wimbledon and expanded on the theme following yesterday's defeat against MK Dons.
He has young players such as Dan Neil, Dennis Cirkin, Callum Doyle, and Ross Stewart who have been mainstays of the side but are clearly in need of a break, while January additions such as Patrick Roberts, Jack Clarke, Trai Hume, and Jermain Defoe are short of minutes and therefore match practice.
"I highlighted it last week and the last thing I want to do is start trying to find excuses and reasons," said Neil.
"The difficulty we have got is the fitness levels of some of the players.
"A lot of the lads haven't played enough gametime, and the problem I have in the limited amount of games we have left is to decide how much I expose them to minutes, because if they are not ready then they can't show their best and that affects the game in a negative way for us.
"We're running out of games, so that side of things is really difficult.
"But of course, you want to get as many of them out on the pitch [as you can] because they can make the difference.
"There are variables that make that much more challenging.
"If it was as straightforward as having everyone on the same level, everyone really fit, they're all ready to go, it's an easy decision, isn't it? I'd just pick who was firing on the day.
"Unfortunately, at the moment, we are not at that stage.
"There's a group of younger players who are in the team who have been playing all season and they need taking out - 100 percent.
"The problem is, what do you choose?
"Play people who are under in terms of minutes and who are not quite ready, or those over their minutes and who has been flogged to death and needs taking out?
"What do you choose?"
There were boos at the full-time whistle as Sunderland's dismal run extended to one win in nine since the turn of the year, and Neil was left trying to pick out what positives he could from another poor performance and worse result.
He said: "As a coach, what you have to do is try to take the result and the performance and try to separate them.
"We need to improve the performance, and what naturally then happens is that the results improve.
"Like the bulk of fans at every club, if you lose then you're cr*p, and if you win then you're alright.
"That's quite straightforward and I understand that.
"That's why in press conferences I'm running the risk of [saying] 'I thought we did well in the second half', and people saying 'he talks a lot of cr*p'.
"That's fine.
"What I have to do is try to balance the game and from a structural point of view large parts of the second half were good, but of course we got got done on the transition on the counter."
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