Skipper Corry Evans has branded Sunderland's 6-0 humiliation at Bolton 'unacceptable' and insists the Black Cats must learn from their mistakes if they are stand any chance of winning promotion, with the result costing Lee Johnson his job.
Johnson was sacked late on Sunday evening, just over 24 hours after the Black Cats were beaten at the University of Bolton Stadium.
They went into the game knowing they could have ended the day at the summit of the table if they won and other results went their way.
But instead they crashed to their heaviest ever third tier defeat, and dropped out of the automatic promotion places.
Speaking before the announcement about Johnson's departure, and addressing the 5,300 supporters who made the trip across the Pennines, Evans said: "I'd just like to apologise firstly to the fans, who travelled in their numbers.
"We let them down and feel really bad for them.
"We need to put it right next week.
"We have to stick together, it's an off day but it’s happened a couple of times this season and we clearly haven't learnt from our mistakes.
"We have to learn from these mistakes if we want to achieve promotion this season.
"To lose in the manner that we did, 6-0, is just unacceptable.
"There are a lot of things to look back on and learn from as a team and as a group but we believe in the way we play and the way to try and be successful going forward."
Sunderland fell behind inside 20 minutes when goalkeeper Thorben Hoffmann misjudged the flight of a wind-assisted clearance from opposite number James Trafford, and that let in Dion Charles to score.
Dapu Afolayan added the second just before half-time, with Charles making it 3-0 soon after the break, and Kieran Lee scoring the fourth on the hour.
It got worse in the final ten minutes as Danny Batth scored an own-goal, and one-time Sunderland loanee Declan John completed the scoring at the death.
Evans said: "Our preparation was fine, we just started the game badly on the back foot,from our kick-off we ended up going back and that set the tone for the game.
"Obviously the first goal was a mix up and from then on we were chasing it a bit, go 2-0 down and the third goal, we talked about getting the next goal and they got it.
"We were sort of on the back foot from then and the game ran away from us."
With no midweek game, Sunderland's next match sees them face relegation strugglers Doncaster Rovers at the Stadium of Light.
Sunderland are expected to make a further announcement about who will take training this week, and the search has already begun for Johnson's replacement.
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