Sunderland manager Regis Le Bris and right-back Trai Hume gave their reaction to The Black Cat’s second loss from their four pre-season friendlies.
In Scotland, Sunderland were their own worst enemies as a catalogue of individual errors saw them slump to a Hearts outfit in the midst of regular fixtures but far from the quality of Premier League.
The Hearts onslaught started when Niall Huggins was outmuscled on the left flank and Hearts pounced by sending in an early cross.
Jenson Seelt’s unnecessary header then fell kindly to a lurking Claudio Braga to head home the opener after 10 minutes.
Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland pulled the trigger from the edge of the area, and his strike found its way through a crowd of Sunderland bodies and Simon Moore between the sticks was unable to fashion a save.
Regis Le Bris elected to start several of the summer signings and those who were stalwart components of The Black Cats‘ Championship campaign, but he decided to rotate everyone apart from Daniel Neil with 70 minutes played.
As a contingent of Sunderland youth prospects entered proceedings at Tynecastle Park, Le Bris’ men narrowly avoided a third when Alan Forrest could not provide the finish shortly after being substituted on himself.
The third decisive goal did eventually come in the 85th minute for the hosts. Sunderland were inviting pressure from their buoyed opponents and paid the price for playing out from the back.
New arrival Noah Sadiki afforded Alexandros Kiziridis a gift from a loose pass, and the latter expectedly dispatched his chance.
To compete with established Premier League clubs and avoid the relegation zone in the top flight, being architects of your own demise is far from the route to stability.
Sunderland will have to patch things up in their build-up play and particularly in defensive areas.
Despite only losing 1-0 to Portuguese champions Sporting Lisbon in their previous pre-season test, dropping standards against weaker opposition is not a tendency the manager will want to translate into the new campaign.
Following the game, Le Bris gave his thoughts on why Sunderland were well below par and how Hearts exposed their weaknesses and lack of impetus.
“For the first time this pre-season we faced a team with high intensity, direct play, man-for-man. It’s obvious to say that the result was the consequence for the way we played.
“It’s time to step in, maybe we are a bit tired but it’s not an excuse. We are a bit disappointed because we missed the opportunity to grow through this pre-season, so it’s a strong reminder.
“Hopefully it will send a strong signal to raise our levels, especially the intensity, the duels, the way we have to be dominant in 1v1s everywhere on the pitch. If that’s not possible, we have to play together to compensate, and that wasn’t the case today.”
Right-back Trai Hume also spoke about the shortcomings in the contest and amending an unsatisfactory performance by getting new faces integrated quicker and responding in their next fixture against familiar opponents Hull City on Tuesday.
The Northern Ireland international has been a regularly selected defender at Sunderland for two seasons and he was a crucial part of their promotion.
He said, “Results aren’t the most important thing. We need to get minutes in the legs and obviously get our fitness up, but from us as a team, we keep our high standards and we know that wasn’t good enough today.
“We made mistakes in that game today and we’ve been punished and did things that we probably haven’t planned or worked on. We did some things off the cuff, which we shouldn’t be doing. We should be organised.
“It will take time for players to get used to be playing. But we don’t want it to take too long as the season is coming up soon.
