'He said...' - Dan Neil reveals interesting Sunderland captaincy talks after Watford fixture

Dan Neil has detailed conversations surrounding his Sunderland captaincy after some early challenges.

The homegrown midfielder was named Sunderland’s team captain for the season by new head coach Régis Le Bris last summer. Luke O’Nien was handed a role as club captain while several squad members were also included in the Black Cats senior leadership group.

The 23-year-old endured some challenging moments during the early part of the campaign, including giving a penalty away at Vicarage Road against this Saturday’s opponents Watford earlier this season. The mistake saw Neil’s captaincy credentials questioned by some fans in the aftermath of the defeat on the road.

“I've took it out of my mind now,” Neil said regarding the mistake last time out against Watford. “I think you have to if I keep dwelling on stuff like that and if I go into the game thinking about that, it's only going to be bad for me because I'm going to be thinking about a mistake that I've made in that game. We're going to treat it like any other game. We're going to go there and try and take three points from them.”

Asked about the early pressures of his captaincy and what has changed, Neil said: “To be honest, I think I've probably done it by not thinking about it as much. When asked if Neil had been thinking about the role a little too much previously, he said: “Yeah, maybe. I think I spoke to Proc (Michael Proctor) about it and he said a good thing. He said we picked you to be captain because of what you do naturally.

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“So stop thinking about it. That was the one bit of advice that kind of got us back to not thinking about it. I just try to do things naturally. I'm not a massive shout-run baller. I look at the game in a different way. There's other lads on the team that do that. I've said in many interviews that it's not just about me being captain.

“We've got a really good leadership group and we've got lads that are growing into leaders every single week. And it's about all of us coming together and leading the team,” Neil concluded after Sunderland’s win against Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium on Monday evening.

Sunderland are next in action against Watford in the Championship at the Stadium of Light at 12:30pm with Le Bris’ side hoping to keep the pressure on the automatic promotion spots after moving to just three points off the top two with the win against Middlesbrough on Monday.