Source: Telegraph
Sunderland thrashing by Newcastle 'the worst defeat of my career', says Steve Bruce
'Probably with the occasion, it is my worst defeat as a manager. Probably in my career, I would have thought," Bruce said. [LNB]"It's still trying to sink in what we have just witnessed. But you know when you go into management that there are times when it is going to be difficult. I don't think anyone could see it coming.[LNB] Related ArticlesNewcastle United 5 Sunderland 1Premier League tablePremier League actionPremier League fixturesTelegraph player raterSport on television'Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Penalties, red cards, poor defending. Rolled into one, it's been a disastrous afternoon.'[LNB]Bruce, who was born and bred in Newcastle and supported the club as a boy, accepted the blame for his sorry team's shortcomings in his first Tyne-Wear derby.[LNB]'To come here and play like that, it's not acceptable,' Bruce added. 'All I can do is apologise. When you get beaten as badly as that, here of all places, it will take a lot of recovering from. It is difficult for our supporters to take a beating, let alone a performance and a hammering like that. We can apologise and try to put it right.[LNB]'I will take full responsibility. I have been saying all week that we must handle the occasion. But from the off, we didn't and we got blown away by a far superior team.[LNB]'We were playing a big derby game and we had three or four players [playing well]. To win it, you need seven or eight or nine. That's what Newcastle had and we didn't have enough and we got our backsides kicked. It is tough to take.'' [LNB]Bruce was confident his team would bounce back. 'It will be the most difficult 48 hours but we have to recover as a group and come out fighting again,' he said. 'We have to take it on the chin. We have to take our medicine.[LNB]'I am a resilient so and so but it will take a while to get over it. I have been beaten before but the one thing I need time to do is to repair the damage and I will try to do that.' [LNB]Michael Turner, the Sunderland defender, felt the atmosphere possibly affected the team. [LNB]'It was humiliating,' he said. 'To give away soft goals like that killed us off in the end. The occasion maybe got to a few of us. We never got the game by the scruff of the neck and gave goals away cheaply. Once we went a man down, the game was over.'[LNB]DERBY-DAY NIGHTMARES...[LNB]Sunderland's thrashing was their heaviest defeat at St James' Park since 1956, but it was not the first time a derby had ended in humiliation.[LNB]Man City 5 Man Utd 1The result that made Alex Ferguson (a plain 'Mr', then) bury his head in the bed-clothes. Newly promoted City, with just one win in their first six games of the 1989-90 season, ran riot, with David Oldfield (2), Trevor Morley, Ian Bishop and Andy Hinchcliffe scoring.[LNB]Tottenham 0 Arsenal 5The 1978 result that still sends shivers through north-east London. Inspired by the genius of Liam Brady and the clinical finishing of Alan Sunderland, Arsenal ripped their rivals to shreds to record their biggest post-War win at White Hart Lane.[LNB]Celtic 6 Rangers 2The optimism of the 5,000 Rangers fans who travelled to Glasgow's east end in August 2000 lasted less than a minute before Chris Sutton opened the scoring. Celtic were three up after 11 minutes and ended with their biggest Old Firm tally since 1957.[LNB]
