Everything Sunderland boss Alex Neil said about Lincoln City, team news and Chris Maguire ahead of League One clash

Here’s what Alex Neil had to say about Alex Pritchard’s injury.

“He’s made really good progress.

“It’s not as bad as first feared at all.

“He will obviously miss this game but I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get him back on the grass next week.”

That brings us to the end of the TV section of the press conference but Neil has also spoken to the written press, including our SAFC writer Phil Smith.

We’ll have more to come from the Black Cats boss.

Of course we need points to try and stay in the top six to stay in the hunt to try and get out of the league.

I’m sure they need points for different reasons.

Let’s be brutally honest, in this game coming up there is certainly going to be more pressure on us than there is on them.

That’s fine because I knew that when I took the job.

I think week on week we will focus on the team more than probably any individual.

There are certain facets of teams that we may need to pay particular attention to.

We will have a game plan for playing against Lincoln in general and we’ll try and implement that and play as well as we can.

Sunderland as a football club is still a massive club, irrespective of the fact that we are in League One just now.

Coming to the Stadium of Light for some teams it’s like DisneyLand, I bet it’s fantastic for them to come here and play at this type of venue, because it is a Premier League stadium.

For some teams they don’t sample that on a weekly basis so coming here and plying in that type of arena is a big occasion for them.

I think there were two main things in the fact that we signed a lot of players in January on loan who hadn’t had a lot of minutes. That was an issue trying to get them up to speed and getting them firing in games.

Equally the lads who had been playing, particularly younger players were not used to churning out 46 games a season.

Trying to refresh them to give them the best chance to show what they can do in the run-in was really important.

I think what we have managed to do is to do both of those things but still maintain picking up the crucial points that we needed, which is not easy to do.

I think when we go away to teams at their own venue they are naturally more expensive, and naturally come out to try and beat us more.

Whereas the last two teams that have come here they have camped in there own half and basically asked them to break them down which leaves a lot of space in behind you which leaves you vulnerable to the counter attack.

I think if you look at any team, if you look at Everton Newcastle last night. Everton sayt in their own half for large parts of the game and made it extremely difficult.

It’s hard to break teams down no matter what level you operate at, it’s a difficult thing to do.

What I will say against Crewe with how I thought the game was going to pan out, how Crewe normally play, they didn’t do that.

The team that I selected for that game probably wasn’t the best personnel to carry out the job that needed doing.

Teams playing against Sunderland: Fans are not silly and know if they come here, keep our crowd quiet and frustrate the team, naturally we are going to have to be more and more expensive to try and win the game - then they can try and hit us on the counter.

If I was an opposing manager that’s how I would try and set up as well. We need to try and guard against that and that’s where the challenge lies.

I think when we go away from home teams view as a bit of a free hit to try and get a scalp in terms of the size of the club.

We have no complaints about it and it is what it is.

It’s difficult to pinpoint any singular player and talk about how important they are.

First of all they need to make sure they are in the starting line-up week in, week out.

Equally everybody in the squad is going to be important because the simple fact is there may be somebody between now and the end of the season that hasn’t been featuring much of late but might come vitally important for the games remaining.

The team has been altered from game to game so far in some way, shape or form.

All the lads have something to offer between now and the end of the season.

I don’t think morale was necessarily an issue.

I think when you are not winning games, naturally players don’t feel great about themselves.

I think getting points on the board and making sure we are competitive to pick those points up is crucial, particularly with the limited games we have left.

I think the lads are in a good space just now and we are confident going into each match.