The 43-year-old was appointed the Lions’ new head coach on Monday and has so far only had one training session with his new players.
Asked if he would need time to look at all of the options at his disposal, he said: “Yeah of course.
“You would never come in and start signing people without looking at the guys that are in the building. My first port of call will be to assess everyone that is here and then if we need to add, between myself and the club, we’ll see what we can do.”
Neil has outlined how he wants his team to play, striking a balance between maintaining possession and moving the ball up the pitch effectively.
“We need to be progressive with our passing – but what we don’t want to do is just kick it back to them,
“Punting the ball up the pitch is not going to make us any better. But also, I’m not a believer of playing 100 passes in your own half. I’d like to think I’m a middle grounder.”
Neil started with a 1-0 loss to Oxford at The Den on New Year’s Day.
The Lions struggled to break down a stubborn and organised opponent.
Neil said: “When the ball needs to go forward, it goes forward. But there will be times when, against teams that are hard to break down, we are going to have to work the ball side to side. You need to work it, move them.
“A big success in the first half was Japhet (Tanganga) with the big diagonal to Joe Bryan, but that’s on the third switch of play. What you do is work it across, and then on the third switch you suck them across, and that space opens up. If you try and hit that in the first switch, everyone is in position. It’s like anything else – when we are scoring more goals and creating more chances, that will become less of an issue.”
The Lions have not scored more than one goal in a game since October – something Neil admits is a problem.
“Yeah it is, but, that’s the challenge we’ve got. If it was easy everyone would do it.”