Sunderland were 1-0 winners at the Stadium of Light on Sunday afternoon

Alvaro Arbeloa criticised his Fulham side after their 1-0 defeat to Sunderland and said they were a long way from their best.

It was a tight game at the Stadium of Light but Régis Le Bris's substitutions made the difference, with Habib Diarra and Wilson Isidor combining to secure the three points for the Black Cats.

Though Fulham arguably had the best chance of the first half when Josh King fired wide from a promising break, they didn't register a shot on target throughout the game. Arbeloa said he was disappointed with his team's mentality and that they need to improve.

"It wasn't our game for sure, we were far from our level," Le Bris said.

"We have been talking during the half-time that obviously you can have some bad days or even come here in a difficult stadium against a European team and maybe you have a bad day with the ball like it was in the first half, but you need to put more energy, better attitude, better mentality.

"So we improved during the first 20-25 minutes of the second half and then we conceded a shot against post and four minutes later the goal. So yes, we need to improve in many things of our game for sure and the first thing is that we need to know how you have to do for winning games is put more energy and like I said at the beginning, a better mentality and attitude as a team and yes, we need to demand more from ourselves."

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Arbeloa rued a poor five-minute spell from his side as Isidor struck the post before scoring the winner.

"The first chance was after we lost the ball," Arbeloa said.

"We know that we need to control the counter-attacks, especially from the people that are far from the ball and yes, the next one we try to press and you need to be aware and keep the line and try to block the runners. I know it's not easy but when you press higher you are taking some risks that we want to take and we need to defend much better than those situations."

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