Alex Neil admits Sunderland lacked their usual quality in the final third as they were held to a goalless draw by play-off rivals Plymouth. The Black Cats went into the game knowing a win would see them climb above the Pilgrims while retaining their game in hand of the South Coast side.
But the draw means that, while Sunderland climbed to sixth in the table, they are still two points behind fourth-placed Plymouth - albeit they do still have that game in hand. In a tight game at Home Park, Sunderland kept a clean sheet and restricted Plymouth to just a single shot on target but the Black Cats were unable to press home the advantage at the other end, with their best chance falling to Nathan Broadhead in the second period only for him to be foiled Michael Cooper.
"I thought we started great in the first 15 minutes, the way we set up worked really well, we found the spare player, but we didn't really hurt them enough, get in behind them enough, link it well enough in certain aspects," said Neil. "In the run-up to half-time, they moved it better than us and created better opportunities than we did, so we had to alter a few things at half-time to make sure they didn't open us up and cause us too many issues, and I don't think they had a shot on target in the second half.
READ MORE: Black Cats return to top six despite being held - Plymouth 0-0 Sunderland match report
"Defensively, all of that was taken care of and the lads carried it out very well. We had the best chance of the second half with Broady going in on the goalkeeper.
"I think this game was always going to be decided by one moment of quality, one opportunity, a mistake, a set-play, something of that ilk. They had their chance [in the first half] with a cut-back and Patto [Anthony Patterson] made a good save, and we had our chance with Broady.
"We had control of the game and that was pleasing, in the second half we were in total control of the match, but we didn't quite do enough in the final third areas to hurt them. It's another clean sheet away from home, but the quality we normally have in the final third wasn't quite there in the end."
Neil put some of Sunderland's shortcomings in the final third down to the sheer physical demands the club has put on Ross Stewart, who has led the line virtually all season, and the lack of a suitable replacement who could be brought on to give him a break. He said: "Plymouth obviously had Ryan Hardie come back, they play with a front two and they can bring another front player on.
"We're really light in certain areas at the moment and if I could have changed things with Ross and Broady, I would have liked to have done that to freshen up the front-line. The lads had run themselves into the ground.
"We've flogged Ross, in particular, to death this year. Unfortunately for him, we don't have anybody else.
"If you take Ross' career in its entirety, I think the most games he has played in one season is 36 or 38. At the moment, he is touching mid-40s in terms of games.
"So to expect the lad to come in at this level and churn that out repeatedly for that amount of time, having done what he has done already, you're asking a lot of anybody to do that. I have sympathy for Ross, however it only goes so far.
"What we have to do is suck it up, rest up and get ready because we have some big games coming up."
Neil said that the draw was 'acceptable' in the circumstances, adding: "It's acceptable, but I'm not delighted - I'm not standing here buzzing that we have drawn the game. We set out to win the game and I think you could see from the substitutions that we tried to be more aggressive with our style and our stance, but unfortunately when we made the subs I felt we didn't control the ball enough then.
"And if you don't control the ball enough when you put those players on, it can be counter-productive. The likes of [substitutes] Patrick [Roberts] and Dan [Neil], we didn't get enough into them and we didn't get enough from them in terms of impact in the final minutes. We've come down here, we've got a point, and I told the lads 'when you're not at 100 percent and playing as well as you can play, you make sure you don't lose'.
"That's what all the successful teams have got in common - they don't get beat when you are at 80 percent of whatever. We didn't play poorly. We came to a really difficult venue, controlled large parts of the game, but just didn't do enough."
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