Alex Neil reacts as Sunderland book a place at Wembley in the League One play-off final

Alex Neil insists Sunderland deserve to advance to the play-off final – but warns there is still one more hurdle to clear. The Black Cats scored a stoppage-time goal to draw 1-1 with Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, which secured a 2-1 aggregate win in the semi-final.

And they will now take on Wycombe Wanderers at Wembley a week on Saturday, with a place in the Championship at stake. “I thought it was no more than we deserved,” Neil said of the draw in South Yorkshire.

“We switched off once in the game and we got punished for it, other than that we defended extremely well but we didn’t set out to be defensive – if you look at our starting line-up, we were trying to be aggressive. Across the piece, I thought we were the better team and I didn’t think we deserved to be trailing [on the night].

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“I’m over the moon for the players because they deserve it. We’ve been questioned, we’re always questioned – can Sunderland do it in the play-offs, and all this sort of palaver – but at the end of the day we deserve it, we’ve done the business.

“We’re on an unbelievable run in terms of the results we have put together and all these players deserve a great deal of credit. But for us, it’s only got us to an opportunity now.

“Although we are happy and we’re pleased and we’ve celebrated tonight, soon we have have to get our minds on the next one. I’m going to go home, spend a couple of days with the kids, and then think about Wycombe in a couple of days’ time.”

Lee Gregory put the Owls ahead 15 minutes from time, levelling the scores on aggregate. But in the fourth minute of injury-time, Patrick Roberts applied the finish to a Jack Clarke cross to send the Black Cats through.

Neil said: “The minute Jack got in behind, I thought we’re in business here. Then Patrick’s movement and the quality of his finish was great. The emotion I felt was hard to describe – relief, pride, there’s a whole host of emotions go in there.

“I was so pleased for the players tonight because they do get written-off. I can’t remember how many people were tipping Sheffield Wednesday to be favourites, so they can put that in their pipe, can’t they?”

Neil had not made any substitutions before the goal, and he says that was a sign of how much confidence he had in his starting XI to get the job done. “That’s probably the first time I haven’t made early changes and the reason I didn’t make them was that I just had so much belief in that team to get the result we needed, and I changed it I might dilute it,” he said.

“I’m really pleased that I stuck to my guns. You have to be brave in those moments because what will happen is that if it doesn’t work in your favour, you will naturally get criticised and people will say that players were flagging and you should have changed it.

“I just have so much faith in that team and they delivered again.”

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