Alex Neil's interesting response when asked what Sunderland's best formation is
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Neil has regularly switched between a back three and a back four during his seven games in charge, as had often been the case before his arrival.
The head coach was asked about which he felt Sunderland were stronger in before the 2-0 win over Crewe Alexandra, and said that more important than the formation was the general approach.
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Hide AdNeil has made making Sunderland better defensively is key goal since taking charge, but knows that on home turf in particular he needs to find a balance with making his side an attacking threat.
"Well if you look at the game against Wigan, we played with a back four," Neil said.
"I think you have to take each game on its own merit, and equally we have to look at how we are trying to defend.
"What we did against Wigan is keep that [back] four when we attacked, the full-backs didn't really venture forward so much, and we played with a mid-block which meant that defensively we were very secure, and then we hit the opposition in transition. The difficulty we have at Sunderland is that I'm not sure that is acceptable at home.
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Hide Ad"I think somebody coming here and having 60 percent possession isn't going to go down particularly well," he added.
"But the simple fact is that at times I'm not here to please people, I'm here to win games and earn points, so what I have to do is come up with a strategy that is going to give us the best chance of winning the game.
"There will be certain games where I think that we're better suited to a back three, and others where we're better suited to a back four.
"It will depend on who we are playing as to how we try to approach it, what we think our strengths are going to be in the game and what the opposition's weaknesses are going to be, and try to make sure we make the most of them."