Luke O'Nien says he was embarrassed following Sunderland's 5-1 defeat to Blackburn Rovers and says the players let themselves down.

It was a result which Mike Dodds labelled completely unacceptable and said some players wouldn't pull on the red and white shirt again if they didn't respond next weekend against Bristol City.

Just when the Black Cats had given themselves a platform to build on heading into the final few games of the Championship after victory at Cardiff, they shot themselves in the foot against Rovers and turned in their most disappointing display of the season.

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It's no understatement to say Blackburn had to do very little work for their goals, in an afternoon which saw Sunderland supporters do their talking with their feet, with thousands leaving the ground well before the final whistle. 

“I had to have a little bit of time after the game to decompress a little bit, emotions, anger, a lot of emotions were there at the end of it,” O’Nien said post match. “People might say it’s one to forget, I think it’s far from that. I think it’s one to remember, one to use and one to motivate. One to never happen again.

“We have to dissect that, it’s chalk and cheese from the weekend. When you have a performance that bad there is so much to take from it that we will. 

“There’s just initial disappointment and embarrassment because we let ourselves down, let Doddsy down. He gave us all the information we needed and to not do the non negotiables of running harder, not looking after the ball. If you don’t do that in any game we’ve got no chance. I know he will get the brunt of it but as players, myself, we have to take responsibility.”