'Embarrassment': Luke O'Nien delivers Sunderland dressing room verdict after heavy Blackburn defeat

Sunderland captain Luke O’Nien says the players have to take responsibility after their 5-1 defeat against Blackburn at the Stadium of Light.

Interim boss Mike Dodds described the performance as ‘completely unacceptable,’ with Rovers forward Sammie Szmodics scoring twice in the first half. Blackburn then put the game beyond doubt after the interval, with Ryan Hedges and Tyhys Dolen getting on the scoresheet within nine minutes of the restart. Chris Rigg did pull a goal back for the hosts, before Blackburn substitute Andrew Moran made it 5-1 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.”