Welcome back to the Stadium of Light for this afternoon’s fixture against Queens Park Rangers.
I would like to extend a warm welcome to Michael Beale and his team, and to the QPR supporters that have travelled to Wearside this afternoon.
Last weekend’s win at Bristol City was an important one and I thought we deserved to win the game.
They had some good spells in the first half, but we were dangerous throughout and after they got the goal at the start of the second half, I thought we were dominant and you saw the best of us.
We really came after them at that point and were well on top – and if anything, we should have scored more goals during that spell.
The one thing that disappointed me was the two goals we gave away, but they are errors, easily fixable and not something I worry about from a structural point of view.
I said to the players before the game that if we win, people will view it as a really good start to the season – but if you don’t, some may view it as a disappointing one.
That’s where we are in terms of the season, but I thought we were excellent and we have our first win and four points on the board.
We made 11 changes on Wednesday evening in the Carabao Cup, as we put so much into the first two league games and I didn’t want to risk any of the lads that have been playing.
Equally, I wanted to give the other lads an opportunity to come into the team and perform, but the difficulty for them is that we didn’t have much of a balance in the team.
That’s ultimately my responsibility and naturally we were disappointed to lose, but those games are about you apply yourself and your attitude.
Some of the boys involved on Wednesday could have a massive part to play this afternoon and everybody will be required to play their part this season.
We have proved we can hold our own at this level and we have worked extremely hard to take something from our first two games, but we must continue that today because we’re only two games in and we have a lot of work to do.
Thank you for your support,
Alex Neil