Sunderland were shit and lost 2-0 at Lincoln City. Current Sunderland manager, Jack Ross, said this afterwards: “It is not just about not playing well in possession, it is about doing the fundamentals of the game right which is work hard, be physical, be competitive. We got absolutely what we deserved from the game. That will often be the case [the first 20 minutes] when we come away from home but we have had a lot of experience of that over the last 15-months or so. You have to be strong enough to stand up to that, we didn’t do that and then didn’t react to going behind. I accept anytime we don’t win a game we have been criticised and I have sometimes been defensive of that and I have been justified. But today, any criticism of me or the team, we deserve that. That is nowhere near good enough, not just for Sunderland. For any football team. I have managed lot of games now, I have not had many of them in terms of seeing a team so far away from what you need to be to win games.”
"It is about doing the most obvious and basic part of the game which is the same whether it is amateur, semi-pro or the highest level you can get to. It is about being competitive, working hard, running about. It sounds basic but it is true. People talk about tactics and system and personnel. You don’t do that part of the game you have no chance. You won’t win games. I will always say it is my responsibility, I am the manager. It is my job to motivate and prepare players properly. Today, that is not good enough from me then as that team and performance was miles away from being good enough to win the game. Discount the last part of the game, we were throwing bodies forward. The first 70 minutes we were so poor, in and out of possession. That was the most disappointing I have seen us. It is very obvious to say we need to be so much better than that to win games in this league. That level of performance, overall my responsibility, it wasn’t good enough.”
