Ricky Sbragia was in no mood to criticise referee Mike Dean's performance after losing to Aston Villa.
Black Cats boss rues injuries and poor defending after home defeat
Sunderland boss Ricky Sbragia was in no mood to criticise referee Mike Dean's performance after losing to Aston Villa on Saturday.
The Black Cats manager could only watch on as his side had a distinct lack of luck during their 2-1 defeat in front of the home supporters.
The Stadium of Light faithful watched on as the Wearside outfit not only had two decent penalty claims turned down, but could also argue that both Villa goals should have been disallowed.
Sbragia, rather than criticise official Dean, instead pointed to the sub-standard defending which cost his side so dearly.
He said: "Things like that seem to go against us, but at the end of the day we didn't defend the two goals well.
"I can't be critical of the referee, but I can be critical of my defenders for not defending it well. I thought they were poor."
Things started brightly for Sunderland when Danny Collins handed the home team an early lead after 11 minutes.
But Villa came back into the game and clinched it thanks to second-half goals by James Milner and a Gareth Barry spot-kick.
Sbragia was forced to make a double substitution immediately after Milner's equaliser with defenders Nyron Nosworthy and goalscorer Collins coming off injured, and the Sunderland boss admitted the changes swung the game in Villa's favour.
When asked if the changes affected the team Sbragia said: "Yes, possibly.
"Danny had a problem with his blurred vision - we tried to get him off earlier and Nyron had the hamstring problem so we had to take the two off, where I would have preferred to have brought a couple of midfield players and keep the defence how it was.
"But there's no excuse - we defended poorly from two situations and we've paid the penalty for it."
