Why Sunderland's late frustration brought another strong transfer call from Alex Neil

The Black Cats were minutes away from temporarily top of the division when a QPR breakaway led to Ilias Chair scoring an excellent free kick. Goalkeeper Seny Dieng then scored a last-gasp header as the visitors recycled a corner, with both goals coming from rapid counter-attacks.

It looked as if Sunderland, despite Anthony Patterson being forced into too many saves, were tiring in the final stages.

Neil, when asked if he had considered making more substitutions earlier, said that he had.

"I was mindful of it [fatigue] but the difficulty of it is, at the moment we've got specialised positions where at the moment, we don't have cover," Neil said.

"So who do I put on?

"So what's running through your [journalists] head, what's running through the heads of the fans, that's what running through my head: 'I need to replace him because he's tiring, I need to replace him because he's tired'.

"But I look round and what I've got is good players, but who play in different positions.

"I don't have a like-for-like where I can go, he's tiring, I'll put a like-for-like in there. So there's not much I can do about that."

Sunderland had been struggling at the start of the second half but the introduction of Patrick Roberts, and a switch to a back four, went some way to bringing parity before the game.

While frustrated his side didn't hold, the head coach also felt they were unfortunate. "I just felt at that point [bringing Ellis Simms off].. if you play two up top, if it's like the first half and you're dominant, they're a real threat and you can pin them in.

"When they're then chasing the game, we need to turn the ball, take it in, pin them, get in behind them and hurt them. We didn't do that, so they looked more likely to score.

"So I had to do something to fix that, to change the flow of the game. I thought we managed that [with Patrick Roberts on], and then at the end we get done with two set plays."

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