• Southampton 8-0 Sunderland, Premier League

Poyet humiliated on 'most embarrassing' day

Gus Poyet did not know where to start when picking apart his side's defeat © Getty Images

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Gus Poyet was left bemoaning the "most embarrassing" moment of his football career after his Sunderland side were hammered 8-0 at Southampton.

Poyet saw his side score two own goals on their way to their biggest ever Premier League defeat as a Graziano Pelle double, as well as goals from Jack Cork, Dusan Tadic, Victor Wanyama and Sadio Mane, sealed a memorable afternoon for the hosts.

For Southampton, the win saw them move into third place in the table, but Poyet was in sombre mood after witnessing his team's decimation.

"Where do I start? First, it was the most embarrassing [moment] I've had on a football pitch without any doubt," he said. "I feel sorry for the supporters. I thought we were creating something between the team and the supporters - they made a long trip and they deserved better. What I say in the dressing room stays in there.

"I use the word 'embarrassing' because I'm trying to be respectful. This is not an easy [press] conference this one, I need to be very careful what I say. I'm responsible.

"It's going to be a difficult week. The players who are on the pitch next week are going to do something about it. I don't think I want to watch that again. Sometimes I make clips. I wouldn't have time to make as many clips as I need. Maybe the players will watch it. Maybe it will be good therapy for them to watch themselves."

Sunderland were denied what appeared to be a stonewall penalty when 2-0 down but, other than that, they never looked like penetrating Southampton's defence, now the most watertight in English football.

Santiago Vergini and Liam Bridcutt scored the unwitting own goals but it was that of the former that will live long in the memory.

Vergini inexplicably fired past Vito Mannone from outside of his own box with all of the execution and aplomb of an experienced striker, leaving Poyet baffled.

"Even if you watch that 20 times you don't know how it can happen," he added. "Then we clear the ball and it hits somebody and it's 2-0. Then you're thinking it's not going to be our day.

"And then the penalty, where - if the ref did his job - it's a penalty and a red card and maybe 2-1 and then we're talking about a different game. After that, I can't explain what happened. I will let the players explain to you, maybe they will have better words. I don't."

For Southampton manager Ronald Koeman, though, the afternoon could not have gone much better.

"I'm still in a little bit in shock. Not about the second half, I think we played very good and scored some great goals, but about the first 20 minutes because I wasn't very happy about our performance at the beginning," Koeman said.

"Sometimes football is strange. I am disappointed for Gus Poyet because they played well at the beginning and had some good chances. It was an unlucky own goal and maybe at 2-0 they should have had a penalty but after that we deserved to win.

"I am proud of the ambition of the team. They are always fighting for more and we need that. I am proud of everyone, even those on the bench because we have such a long season. The clean sheet is important. We have a strong defence and a superb goalkeeper and you have to look at the attackers when we don't have the ball because it is superb organisation."

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