{"id":616849,"date":"2022-08-26T07:54:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T11:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=616849"},"modified":"2022-08-26T07:58:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T11:58:28","slug":"sunderland-allowing-alex-neil-to-leave-would-be-a-huge-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/08\/26\/sunderland-allowing-alex-neil-to-leave-would-be-a-huge-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Allowing Alex Neil to Leave Would Be a Huge Mistake for Sunderland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Reports from Sky Sports\u2019\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkySports_Keith\/status\/1563109501141909506?s=20&amp;t=ygzlN4-8dSa5O-_HZ0UJdA\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Keith Downie<\/a> and Michael Walker of <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/3540334\/2022\/08\/26\/alex-neil-sunderland-stoke-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Athletic<\/a> have indicated that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/08\/25\/jewison-bennette-completes-move-to-sunderland\/\" target=\"_self\">Sunderland<\/a> have given their manager Alex Neil permission to talk to Stoke City and he is likely to leave. The Potters sacked Michael O\u2019Neil following their defeat to the Black Cats last weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">They are now hoping to secure the man who has made a remarkable impact on Wearside since arriving in February. Should Neil be allowed to leave it would be a huge mistake on Sunderland\u2019s part. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Sunderland Allowing Alex Neil to Leave Would Be a Big Mistake on Their Part<\/span><\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Press Conference Moved Back<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Friday morning\u2019s press conference was moved back to 2 pm with reports suggesting it was due to Stoke City\u2019s interest; however, it was noted by Joe Nicholson of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sunderlandecho.com\/sport\/football\/sunderland-afc\/alex-neil-on-stoke-citys-radar-as-sunderland-hope-to-keep-their-head-coach-ahead-of-norwich-city-clash-3820761\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sunderland Echo<\/a> that Neil took training. Their report indicated that training had been delayed due to Neil being held up in a meeting earlier in the morning. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\ude1f His pre-match press conference has been pushed back<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SAFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SAFC<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SCFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SCFC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/T71ptFALhQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/T71ptFALhQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sunderland Echo SAFC (@sunechosafc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sunechosafc\/status\/1563115437813948417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Alex Neil Has Revitalised Sunderland Since Arriving <\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">When Sunderland sacked former manager <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/01\/30\/lee-johnson-sacked-sunderland\/\" target=\"_self\">Lee Johnson<\/a> in January following a humiliating 6-0 defeat at Bolton Wanderers, the Black Cats were in dire form and shipping goals at an alarming rate. Their desperation to get out of League One looked set to continue into the 2022\/23 season. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">However, following the appointment of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/05\/13\/alex-neil-credit-sunderland-season\/\" target=\"_self\">Alex Neil<\/a>, the team were revitalised and went on an unbeaten run that would end with victory at Wembley. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Neil led his new team to the playoff final beating Wycombe Wanderers 2-0. It was the first time Sunderland had won at Wembley in front of fans since 1973. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Allowing Alex Neil to Leave Could Be One of Sunderland\u2019s Biggest Mistakes <\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Sunderland under Neil have started life in the Championship brightly. Currently in fifth place, they have suffered just one defeat, a narrow 2-1 loss at Sheffield United while playing with 10 men for much of the game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Neil has been allowed to strengthen his squad this summer with more additions possible before the transfer window ends next week. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Neil has his team playing attractive attacking football. Although this can lead to goals being conceded, the Black Cats have the ability to outscore their opponents. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">The future at Sunderland looks bright under Alex Neil with fans backing him and the team in huge numbers both home and away. However, should he be allowed to leave without a fight, the ramifications could be disastrous. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Neil is currently working with a 12-month rolling contract on Wearside. Should this be an issue then the club must do all they can to agree a new deal with their manager before another club offers him a much better deal. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allowing Alex Neil to leave would be a huge mistake by Sunderland as links to Stoke City&#8217;s manager&#8217;s job grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":616852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,7188,21,22],"tags":[3537],"class_list":["post-616849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-championship","category-rumours","category-stoke","category-sunderland","tag-alex-neil"],"modified_by":"Barry Dixon, LWOF Site Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}