The Black Cats are now eight points behind the top two after Monday night’s dramatic defeat at Elland Road, with Neil admitting Leeds’ late turnaround to win 2-1 was tough to take.
But Neil was quick to remind his teammates that Sunderland still have a 15-point gap on seventh-placed Coventry City and have lost just one of their last seven games.
“My message would be let’s stick together,” said the midfielder.
“Let’s have a right good run at these last remaining games and, you know, what will be will be and we’ll try on the pitch to get the best possible outcome for everyone.
“If you looked at the start of the season and you said that we were going to be fourth with 15 games to go and still with a chance of getting automatic promotion…like I said, there’s twists and turns yet to come in the season.
“Obviously, the way the season’s panned out, we probably should be in a little bit better position in terms of automatic promotion. But if you looked at the start of the season and if you look at last year, how we finished, you can see the hard work and the effort that everybody at the club has put in to turn last season around.
“I’m proud of all the boys, all the staff this year of what we’ve achieved so far. But we’re certainly not done.
“We’re certainly going to give our absolute all in these last few games to get the best possible outcome.”
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Emotions were understandably raw in the away dressing room at full-time at Elland Road, so Neil and his fellow leaders in the Sunderland squad were keen to let the dust settle before holding a more detailed debrief at the Academy of Light.
“All the lads were hurting in there,” he said.
“When the emotions are so high at the time, a few lads spoke, but I think we have to wait until the emotions have calmed down.
“We have to speak about it because these big games, in the second half we have to find better ways of dealing with that pressure. I think we’re such a good team in possession that we could have got up the pitch a lot better.
“But all the lads are together. We’ve got an unbelievable togetherness in this team. I think you’ve seen that all year with the character we’ve shown to come from behind in a lot of games.
“We’re going to stick together. We’re going to look at this game, and the remaining games are all cup finals. We’re going to be prepared.
“Everybody needs to get behind each other. Whether it’s players, staff, fans – all associated with the club. All these lads love playing for this club. And we’ll do anything to help this club get to where we all believe it belongs.”