Jack Ross gives his verdict as Sunderland fall to heavy defeat against Peterborough United

Josh Knight puts Peterborough 2-0 ahead on Saturday afternoon

Marcus Maddison scored a brace as the Black Cats struggled in a poor second-half showing, seeing both Luke O’Nien and Charlie Wyke sent off.

Maddison had put his side ahead in a tight opening period with a free-kick from distance, and a clinical counter shortly after their break all but ended the away side’s resistance.

“We don’t want to sugar coat today,” Ross said.

“We suffered a heavy defeat today. We have had very few of these occasions in 14 months so it is sore. We don’t want to say it is acceptable and say it doesn’t matter, but the truth is there is still a long way to go. We are in the higher part of the table, we want to improve on it.

“We have to learn from the bad moments and we can strip back the key moments from today and improve.

“It is a sore one for us. There are days when you need to take your medicine and deal with it. We are disappointed, it is sore but it is a long season and we have opportunities to put a run together and forget about this.

“It is strange standing here because people will have a perception of how the game went after that scoreline,” he added.

“We did well first half against a good team away from home, I thought we looked solid defensively and a threat going forward. The free-kick aside we would have been relatively happy at half-time.

“We still believed we would win the game after that as well. We were in the ascendendancy and after that things happened in the game that made it nigh on impossible to win the game.”

It was the first time Sunderland have lost by three goals under Jack Ross, and the Black Cats boss said he had to take responsibility after the late implosion.

“First of all, I think we were hard done by to be a goal down at half-time,” he said.

“The second goal is on the counter, we have to deal with that better but we were in the ascendancy.

“Thereafter I take responsibility because the substitutions I make, the first one in particular because it's one geared ot get us back into the game, because even at 2-0 we believed that we would score.

“Therafter, it's very difficult because it's hard enough to change the game, never mind with nine men.”