No room for ‘here we go again’ after Burton loss

SUNDERLAND must not waste time feeling sorry for themselves after their unbeaten start came to an end, insists Jack Ross.

The Black Cats’ 2-1 defeat comes hard on the heels of back-to-back home draws against Oxford United and Fleetwood Town, meaning they have only picked up two points from nine.

Manager Ross has taken responsibility for the defeat at the Pirelli Stadium and says the important thing is that Sunderland do not allow the kind of ‘here we go again’ mentality – which led to so much negativity in recent seasons – to creep back in.

“What we have to do is make sure that we don’t let our mentality turn back to feeling sorry for ourselves and saying ‘here we go again’,” said Ross, whose side remain fourth albeit the gap between themselves and the automatic promotion places has increased to four points.

“That’s happened too much at this club in recent seasons.

“I believed going into the weekend, given the other fixtures, if we won today, it would put us in a really good position, so it makes it even more frustrating for us.

“We are still in an okay position but the question is, where do we want to go? Do we accept that as being okay and we’re happy with it? Certainly not from my point of view, that’s not why I came to the club.

“We need to keep going and make sure that when we have days like today – and it wasn’t a good day for us – we don’t buckle.”

Sunderland were dire in the first half and deservedly trailed 2-0 at the break.

Ross admitted: “The first half performance was one that we know, if we replicate that, we won’t win many football matches at any level of the game.

“That was reflected in the scoreline at half-time, and I had no qualms with that scoreline whatsoever – they were streets ahead of us.

“Our reaction to falling behind was not good and we wanted half-time to come.

“We managed to get ourselves back into the game a little bit in the second half, but it’s a really tough ask to get something when you’re two goals behind.

“At least in the second half we looked like we had an interest in the game, because the first half was way below the standard we need to be at.

“As the manager, I’m responsible because it is my team selection, my preparation, so regardless of how good or bad a performance is, it should always fall upon my shoulders to try and rectify these issues.”