Carlos Cuellar: “It was all the more painful for me because it was against my old club, and it was my first time back playing at Villa Park.
“I wanted to play well, I wanted to win, and I wanted to show everyone how much it meant to me.
“In the first half, I think I did OK, but in the second half I don’t know what happened – everything I tried went wrong.
“We went in at half-time at 2-1, and we were still in the game, and felt that we could get something out of it.
“But in the second half, as a team, everything we tried to do backfired.
“We worked all week to prepare, but we are only human, and we made mistakes.
“Every header we tried to win, we lost; every simple pass went astray; and every time we had to defend, Villa had a chance.
“We went through the video on Tuesday and analysed the mistakes we made.
“But there was no finger-pointing, because it does no good to blame individuals.
“We win as a team, and we lose as a team.
“We are professional. We accept that we made mistakes and, as a team, we take responsibility.
“We have analysed the mistakes and learned from them, but we have to forget the Villa game now and focus on Stoke.
“It was an embarrassing scoreline, and an embarrassing performance at Villa, but we cannot cry about it all week – there is nothing to be gained from that.
“Of course it is painful to have lost, but those three points have gone – we have to concentrate on getting three points on Monday now.
“We cannot afford to keep on going over the past, because if you do that then you are not concentrating on the next match.
“We have to be mentally strong, clear our heads, and focus 100 per cent on Stoke City.
“The Stoke game is one of the most important games of the season for us. If we win, the mathematics won’t say we are quite safe, but we know we will be 99 per cent there.”
Source: Sunderland-Mad
Source: FOOTYMAD
