Sunderland fans react to Jarred Gillett’s refereeing performance, Dan Neil red card and Middlesbrough loss

Sunderland were beaten 4-0 by Middlesbrough at the Stadium of Light – and fans have been reacting on social media.

After an even first half, Black Cats midfielder Dan Neil was shown a second yellow card for dissent as the hosts were reduced to 10 men.

Middlesbrough then took full control after their interval as Sam Greenwood and Matt Crooks both scored in the space of three minutes.

The visitors then added a third when Isaiah Jones broke down the right and converted with a calm finish, before a last-minute goal from Marcus Forss.

Here’s how some fans reacted after the match:

@carlrutherford: We didn’t regroup well enough after the red card. Second half was awful along with the first 15 minutes which also cost Neil his first yellow. Ba through the middle just didn’t work. Ref still absolutely spoilt it

@_JordanSimpson: Even with 10 men you should still be hard to beat and show something going forward but that wasn’t the case at all today. Red card came when the momentum had swung in our favour as well. Couldn’t have gone any worse today.

@Parsden: Much the better team in the first half but we needed to be stronger with 10 men. Less said about the ref the better

@Ian_Crow3: Daft red by Neil. Ref’s performance frustrated us and had us all over the place. Lax in the first half, had chances as we grew into it, but red changed the game. Hopefully young lads shake it off and come back stronger. International break comes at a great time.

@76skelly: You can’t get a soft yellow then mouth off at the ref no matter how bad they’ve been. Neil, as am sure he’s aware, let the team down today. Ballard was my MoM on slim pickings

@Dan1879_SAFC: Red card ruined the game. But also we were naive in the second half with 10 men. We didn’t make it hard enough for them to create chances, we were wide open! Need to learn from it and the ref needs put down to the conference

@wdt0_0: Only two players came out today with any credit - Ballard and Ba. Mowbray got the formation wrong second half