Phil Smith's verdict: Sunderland's season is drifting and promotion looks a distant dream - so what can Alex Neil do?

No one had the answer, and so with a wry smile he was off.

Neil’s point was that diagnosing Sunderland’s problems was relatively straightforward, but solving them is another matter entirely.

It was another game in which the Black Cats had laboured, forcing barely a save from MK Dons goalkeeper Jamie Cumming despite the significant amount of attacking talent in the squad.

Jermain Defoe was an unused substitute. Patrick Roberts won a free kick in a dangerous area with a lovely, gliding run, but that was just about all he had to show from another brief cameo.

Until he was moved infield late on Alex Pritchard was again wasted on the left wing, and Ross Stewart largely isolated up front as a result.

Neil wants to get more attacking players on the pitch but he has been clear this week, and was again after the game, that he thinks the January arrivals are simply not fit enough.

He also thinks that Sunderland’s young players ‘need taking out’, but he simply does not have the options to do that, particularly in defence.

This was another game in which many of those youngsters again looked lethargic, summed up by them taking too many touches on the ball, inviting pressure in dangerous areas.

Neil has tried to shore up his side by installing a midfield anchor since his arrival, but right now his side are unconvincing on and off the ball.

They have now dropped out of the top six, and this season is in serious danger of drifting into the abyss.

MK Dons arrived two points and one place above Sunderland in the table, but there were large parts of the game where the gap looked greater.

The visitors have evolved significantly under Liam Manning, a team once renowned for its easy-on-the-eye style producing a textbook away performance.

They came with a clear game plan, to frustrate and to break. In both cases, it was far too easy against this brittle Sunderland side.

There was plenty of time wasting right from the off, but it was also striking how much more decisive they were in possession.

Barely a pass was wasted, the weakness in the spine of Sunderland’s side constantly tested and exposed with early balls over the top or out into the channel.

The home side had significantly more of the ball in the first half, but did not have anything resembling a good scoring opportunity to show for it.

Neil was keen to stress that he had been pleased with some elements of his side’s performance, that he had seen many of the messages he had tried to instil over his first full week on the training ground carried out at least in part.

But he had also seen how fragile confidence is in the group, and admitted that the first thing he had said at half time was that they needed to be braver, to take quicker and more progressive decisions on the ball.

They did do that to an extent, the home side looking like the more likely to score again before Connor Wickham’s inevitable intervention.

But Neil has now seen first hand what Sunderland supporters have seen all season, that his group of players can play some good football but that the response to adversity within games is invariably not good enough.

It would have seemed inconceivable in the aftermath of that stunning win over Sheffield Wednesday at the turn of the year but at this moment the Black Cats look like an outside bet to even get a shot at promotion through the play-offs.

The squad at this moment looks weaker for the January window, rather than stronger.

Three points against Burton Albion are a must and so it brings us back to Neil’s dilemma.

“What do you choose? Players who are under in terms of their minutes and aren't quite ready, or over in their minutes and need taking out?”

There are no easy answers, but perhaps that brief spell in the second half is the platform from which to build.

The option to strengthen the defence is now gone, and so perhaps the best chance of getting results now is to try and back Sunderland’s attacking ranks, where match fitness may be short but options are at least multiple.

At the very least, the cameos from Jack Clarke and Elliot Embleton showed they are capable of stepping in and that would have the knock-on effect of getting Alex Pritchard, by some distance Sunderland’s best player at the moment, in a position where he can control the game.

Given the way the team generally is performing, there has to be a case for using more of Defoe and Roberts in the hope that it can lead to more sharpness in the latter stages of the season when Sunderland are going to need players capable of producing under pressure.

Above all else, Sunderland need to give supporters something, anything, to relish.

It has been a bruising year so far, poor performances compounded by off-pitch tumult.

Trust has been damaged and four years on from relegation to League One, the Championship looks as far away in this moment than it has ever done.

It’s a bleak reality for fans to face and time is running out to change the direction of travel.

The worst emotion in football is apathy but right now, that is where Wearside is headed. Many are already there, and you can’t blame them.

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