Inside another dramatic, almost brilliant Sunderland afternoon and the clear Alex Neil warning that followed

There was a moment towards the end of the first half when you drew breath and feared Sunderland might just be in real trouble.
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And then as just as the QPR press reached him, Corry Evans nonchalantly flicked a ball back over his head and took the opposition midfielder out of the equation.

A simple pass out to the flank, and on we go.

And then in the second half, he did exactly the same thing again. All over the pitch, there were these little moments of a team not just finding its feet at Championship level, but taking another significant one forwards.

Elliot Embleton after his late effort is deflected onto the crossbarElliot Embleton after his late effort is deflected onto the crossbar
Elliot Embleton after his late effort is deflected onto the crossbar
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It should, really should, have been an afternoon in which the overriding emotion was one of pride and excitement as Sunderland took their place (albeit very much temporarily) at the top of the nascent Championship table.

QPR had their moments but Alex Neil’s side were every bit worthy of their lead.

And even in the disappointment and frustration at seeing two late goals go in and two precious points pass by, it was an afternoon where there were and still are positives everywhere you looked.

Evans and his midfield partner Dan Neil were excellent. Yet again Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms dominated their defensive opposition in the first half, taking their chances well. Alex Pritchard was simply sublime in the way he pulled into space and picked up possession; Mick Beale’s side threatened intermittently but for the most part laboured.

Seny Dieng celebrates his equaliserSeny Dieng celebrates his equaliser
Seny Dieng celebrates his equaliser
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The chaos of the final few minutes shouldn’t detract from the fact that Sunderland have emphatically proven they can compete and thrive at this level. Going forward more so than in defence, admittedly.

And really, hard as it might be to face right now, this is what all that pain, all that anguish and all that fight to get out of League One was all about. This was a proper, open, high-quality game of Championship football in which neither side left anything out there on the pitch. In fact, Beale joked afterwards that every single one of his registered strikers were on the pitch at the end. You could take that further, for every single registered striker across the two clubs had been used at some point and the contest and all the better for it.

For Sunderland, that late comeback will sting. If five points from three represents a solid start, seven would have been exceptional and all the sweeter for a first home win.

Dissecting what went wrong isn’t straightforward. There were errors, for sure. In both cases, you could make the case that given the game situation it was reckless to leave so much space for QPR to break into. For the second, you could certainly argue that better communication would have allowed Anthony Patterson to claim the initial corner, rather than punching the ball back into the path of the dangerous Ilias Chair to cross again.

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There was also the sense that this was just one of those spells, one of those days. For QPR, it was a spell and a day when Seny Dieng wrote himself into folklore. He’d had a day even before he instinctively made the decision to race forward for a late corner. He’d been unfortunate for the first goal, let down by the slow reaction of his defence as his great save from Dan Neil fell at the feet of Stewart. He’d been excellent throughout the second half, taking up aggressive positions well outside his box to snuff out some really dangerous breaks.

Even after his goal he wasn’t done, making a strong stop to deny Stewart a winner. When Sunderland finally beat him again on the follow up, Elliot Embleton’s goal bound effort caught the trailing foot of a defender and bounced away off the underside of the bar. Were it not so galling, the bad luck would almost have been comical.

QPR, too, had underlined again that there is no Championship game in which Sunderland can expect to dominate from start to finish. The visitors had been poor in the first half and so Beale turned to his bench and brought on Tyler Roberts, a Premier League regular for Leeds United last season. With Roberts occupying bodies in the middle of the pitch, Chair was able to drift out into the left and really influence proceedings. He had been a bystander through the first half, and this shift in the contest was reflected in the fact that it was now Pritchard dropping deep to try and help his team-mates.

Perhaps most frustrating for Sunderland was that in introducing Patrick Roberts and switching to a back four, they rode that wave of pressure and for 20 minutes before the comeback were excellent.

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And here lies the ultimate lesson, and the pattern that at the moment will keep repeating. Sunderland tired again, and were punished again.

Alex Neil was fighting with himself after the game, conscious not to let the immediate emotions of two set-piece goals cloud what had been a broadly good performance.

But when asked if he’d been tempted to make more substitutions earlier to try and ward off that fatigue, he not unreasonably asked, ‘who could I bring on?’ There were talented players on the bench, but no specialist number ten, no specialist full back and no specialist holding midfielder of real Championship experience.

With Dan Ballard now seemingly facing a spell on the sidelines (the significance of which cannot be overstated), Neil says it is the same story on the right of a back three even if Luke O’Nien stood in well here.

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Neil has said over and over again in recent weeks that Sunderland’s final position in the Championship will be defined by what business they do before the window shuts. He knows that there is better opposition still to play, and more inevitable bumps and bruises to come. It will not always be as fun as large parts of these opening three fixtures have been.

This was the most brutal reminder of what that depth and cover is so important; the platform is there to build from.