‘We were not brave enough on the ball – I’m sorry for the fans’
Tony Mowbray said his side lacked bravery in possession as they fell to a 5-1 defeat to Stoke City on Alex Neil's return to the Stadium of Light on Saturday.
It was in some ways a familiar game for Sunderland in the context of recent weeks, with Mowbray's team struggling to turn possession into clear chances.
Stoke proved to be even more ruthless on the counter than Coventry City were the previous week, running amok in a dismal second half for the home team and their supporters.
Mowbray says his side is suffering from not having the option to stretch the opposition in defence, inviting pressure on the ball.
But he was clear that he felt his side had never been in control of the game as Stoke's gameplan worked to perfection.
And the Black Cats head coach issued an apology to the 43,000 crowd for what was a chastening experience in the second half.
"I'm not sure we've lost too many games by more than one goal since I've been here, so I didn't see it coming," Mowbray said.
"We're a team that try to dominate the ball and they want to stop you, break on you and counter - and they did that better than we did.
"I was really disappointed with the lack of bravery in trying to keep the ball and pick it up in the positions that we normally would.
"I didn't think it was a normal Sunderland game where I feel that we've been in control.
"Recently we've struggled to score in games where we've dominated but I didn't feel we had that control today.
"Is that because they were so good out of possession, or a lack of bravery in possession from us? It's probably a bit of both.
"I've just said to the players, we can't accept that a team is quite good out of possession because every team will do that if they think that's a winning formula.
"So we either change everything or get better at what we do - and we needed to be better at what we do today.
"We have played Jack Clarke up front recently but he finds that role difficult and so we tried to play through the press.
"We didn't have much success so credit to them. They did what they do better than us doing what we’re trying to do.
"It's very unlike us [to lose that heavily]. We have to keep pushing with what we think is the best way for this team to play, and I hope that's given a lot of people of joy across the season so far.
"That hasn't happened today and I apologise to the supporters who came today because we want to be the best version of ourselves.
"We want to be a team who dominates the ball and it's a learning curve for us the better you become at it, the braver you become with it. The disappointing thing for me is, you can lose confidence but you have to still compete, and the result reflects the disappointment of us all at how that game unfolded. We're normally a very competitive team."
Sunderland now face a challenging schedule as they look to keep their topsix hopes alive, travelling to Norwich City next weekend.