Sunderland loanee Anthony Patterson finally made his now for new club Millwall at the weekend
The Black Cats academy graduate completed a temporary switch to the Championship outfit during the January transfer window, but has had to wait patiently for his first taste of action at The Den.
With Millwall currently third in the second tier, Neil had opted to stick with in-form stopper Max Crocombe for his side’s previous two outings, with the New Zealand international having kept nine clean sheets this season and boasting a division-high save percentage of 75.7%.
Speaking earlier this month, the former Sunderland head coach had cited the need to ease Patterson into his first team plans, telling a press conference: “I think Max has done well. But equally, we just need to be careful with Patterson as well. He hasn’t played a load of minutes, and we don’t drop out and get the ball out from goal kicks. We put the ball forward, so you’ve got a lot of repeated kicking.
“The biggest concern, certainly for the sports science lads and even Sunderland’s feedback to us, as well as Tom [Watson, who also joined Millwall on loan from Brighton during the January window] – both teams have done that – they’re a little bit concerned about flinging them in too early and breaking them down. We’ve listened to that, and hopefully, we’ve got an opportunity to bed them in.”
What did Alex Neil say about Anthony Patterson’s Millwall debut?
On Saturday afternoon, however, Neil finally pulled the trigger on Patterson’s inclusion, only for the Sunderland talent to concede three goals in an unexpected defeat at the hands of relegation-threatened Portsmouth - an outcome that the Scot in no way blamed his new goalkeeper for.
Explaining the decision to bring Patterson into the starting XI, Neil said: “We had the last game against Sheffield Wednesday. I could easily sort of flipped it then. Obviously, Max made a bit of an error in the last game.
“But what I do think is we’ve got thirteen games left, and if something had happened to Max, whether it be today, the next game, whatever, we’re putting whoever in the goal a little bit cold at that point. We’ve still got another thirteen games to go. I know right now, every single moment feels like a cup final. We’ve got loads of the season still to go. Before today, we’d had just less than a third of the season to go.
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“I need to see where everybody is. I’ve done the same with Barry [Bannan]. I’ve then given Tom Watson a start today, and the reason I need to do that is I need to see what they can provide for us. It’s easy to watch it in training. It’s in the real stuff when you notice it. We need to see where everybody is going to be for the run-in. I felt a bit sorry for Patto in the fact that I didn’t think that he was the problem, if that makes any sense.”
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