Sunderland boss Alex Neil on Wembley, the play-off final and the future

It's not the first time he's made this point, and not the first time his side have faced a high-pressure game. If you do something different, he asks, then would you not wonder why you hadn't been doing it all along?

Yet the stakes are not lost on the head coach and nor is the potential prize at the end of it.

Over seventeen games, the last fifteen of which have been unbeaten, he has developed a bond primarily with his group of players but also with the wider fanbase.

It is for them, he says, that he is determined to try and deliver.

"I would take a huge amount of pride if we were able to be successful," Neil said.

"Equally, though, as a manager you have to be selfless. And that's a word I use a lot with the players in terms of how I want us to do things.

"So, if we're going to pick up a certain way from corners, it doesn't really matter if I'm comfortable doing that way because I'm not going to head the ball. You need to be comfortable doing it, and what I mean by this is that the most important thing for me is to try and get his club, this fanbase, this group of players, to be successful.

"Nothing would give me more pleasure than to make people happy and let them go onto the next level.

"My job as a coach is to make people better, try and enhance their careers and life."

Neil knows too that though the potential for anguish is vast, of all the ways to win promotion this is potentially the best, if you can manage it.

"It probably is, yeah," he said.

"Because it's a cup final and a sort of league process in one sitting, isn't it.

"I've been fortunate enough to have two of them and it's hard to describe the feeling, particularly as at Hamilton I'd spent a long, long time there and it was a club close to my heart.

"To do it there was great, and to reach the Premier League with Norwich was great. And this one would be right up there if we managed to do it."

All of this seemed a long way off in the days after Neil took charge, the team in poor form and the campaign seemingly fizzling out at an alarming pace.

That's not lost on Neil, as his side prepare to take on the final hurdle.

"I would have taken it [this position] definitely," he said.

"I felt automatic promotion was going to be extremely difficult at that point when you looked at our form before I came in, I think we'd conceded ten goals in three games.

"There were things that needed fixing and we had to go to an unbelievable run just to get to this point.

"I'd have definitely taken that if you'd offered it to me."

This is undoubtedly another crossroads moment for Sunderland and perhaps too for their head coach, who was asked directly whether this game would have any bearing on his future.

"I don't want to be in League One, but at the end of the day you have to earn the right to be a better level," Neil said.

"So it's my responsibility to deliver.

"My future, people's future, all of that sort of stuff, will get resolved in the summer. We need to focus on this, and the rest will take care of itself.

"I've not really spent any time thinking about that.

"We've had discussions about things, naturally. But given what's going to be determined by this game, [the decisions] vary. So it's hard to be too specific on a lot of the detail."

Supporters hoping for a more definitive response can take comfort with the enthusiasm Neil clearly has for the job and for the club.

"It's certainly not an easy club to manage because there's so many factors to it, but what I try to do is eliminate the factors that don't concern me and don't really have an impact on the immediate," he said.

"Because at any club, you can talk about process etc but what matters is what happens on the pitch.

"If you're successful, the rest you can fix in the background.

"Of course [I've developed an affinity]. When anyone entrusts you to take care of their club, and believe in the fact that you're doing it for the best of the club and not for yourself, that's when people trust you.

"I hope I display those traits, because that's how I feel. I make the best decisions for the team and the club, and I'm last in the line when I think about my decisions.

"That's how I see it here, and that's how I feel it should be."

Neil was also asked whether he felt a win on Saturday would be transformational. He wasn't quite sure about that, but he did say that it would allow the next phase of the journey to begin.

"Whether we're in the Championship or not, next year will go along," he said.

"But naturally, for us to get back to where we want to be as a club, getting out of League One is fundamental and the sooner you do that the better.

"I definitely feel like there's optimism [around the club], which is nice, and there's anticipation. I think there is a much more positive outlook, and that's good, that's what you want."

Now to try and get over the line.

Do that, and the rest becomes an awful lot easier.