Sunderland captain Luke O’Nien responded to the team’s heavy 5-1 loss against Blackburn at the Stadium of Light by emphasizing the need for players to take responsibility.
Interim manager Mike Dodds echoed O’Nien’s sentiment, labeling the performance as “completely unacceptable.” The defeat saw Blackburn’s Sammie Szmodics netting twice in the first half, followed by goals from Ryan Hedges and Tyhys Dolen shortly after the interval.
Despite Chris Rigg pulling one back for Sunderland, Blackburn’s Andrew Moran sealed the win with a goal nine minutes from time.
“I had to have a little bit of time after the game to decompress a little bit, emotions, anger, a lot of emotions were there at the end of it,” said O’Nien after the match. “People might say it’s one to forget, I think it’s far from that. I think it’s one to remember, one to use and one to motivate. One to never happen again.
“We have to dissect that, it’s chalk and cheese from the weekend. When you have a performance that bad there is so much to take from it that we will.
“There’s just initial disappointment and embarrassment because we let ourselves down, let Doddsy down. He gave us all the information we needed and to not do the non negotiables of running harder, not looking after the ball. If you don’t do that in any game we’ve got no chance. I know he will get the brunt of it but as players, myself, we have to take responsibility.”