Alex Neil issues a judgment on the brave Sunderland was defeated by Stoke City, but the bad news is that key players will miss 4 games as a result.

Reaction from the bet365 Stadium as Stoke City secure 2-1 win over Sunderland

Alex Neil was proud of Stoke City’s gutsy performance that secured a vital win, regardless of whether or not it was against Sunderland, his former club.

Stoke had to dig in to secure three points at the bet365 Stadium after Luke McNally’s header early in the second half put them 2-1 ahead. It’s a result, in a jam-packed Championship, that only lifts Stoke up one place to 20th – but now within six points of sixth place, which is Sunderland.

“I’m really pleased,” said Neil. “We needed to win irrespective of who we were playing against today. You knew Sunderland were going to come and, but fans are fans, they were always going to sort of fire a few shots at me, which is fine and I get it.

“But just for our lads, for the club, for the supporters, we needed a bit of optimism and a good performance, and certainly three points under our belt. We’ve got some really tough games coming up as well, we’re aware of that. So today was a good day for us.”

Stoke had won one of their previous eight league games and Neil is conscious this has to be the springboard.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got Leeds on Wednesday so they don’t get any easier. We’ll see how our lads come back in terms of who’s going to be available or not. We’ve got to bear in mind that for lads, particularly when they’ve come from a different league like Ryan (Mmaee) and Andre (Vidigal), is that when you play that type of game and put in as much as you do, can you go away on Wednesday? Can you go again on Saturday?

“That’s the biggest challenge in the Championship for all these lads that we’ve got so we’ll take a view over the next couple of days. We’ll see how they feel.”