Alex Storey has held his hands up and admitted Saturday’s Wear-Tees defeat was unacceptable.
Sunderland under-18s experienced a day to forget as Middlesbrough ran out 5-1 winners at the Academy of Light in the Premier League.
While the Black Cats approached the match on the back of a closely fought 2-0 defeat at the undefeated league-leaders Manchester City last week, Elliott Dickman found his side trailing by the same margin after just 45 minutes.
Boro went on to score a further three times in the second period, however, Fergus McAughtrie did manage to reduce the arrears slightly as he struck a consolation goal.
The youth team though have no time to dwell on set back as preparations get underway for Wednesday’s FA Youth Cup Wear-Tyne derby against Newcastle United.
“It is a massive learning curve for us and a bit of a reality check for us,” Storey stated.
“It just shows that we are not where we thought we should be at the minute and now we have got to prepare quickly for Wednesday’s massive game against Newcastle.
“We have got to get together as a team and make sure we respond and put in a much better performance against them.”
He continued: “Maybe we were getting a bit complacent with ourselves because up until then we were doing well.
“Hopefully we can turn the result into a positive and use it as motivation to get back to winning ways, starting on Wednesday against Newcastle.”
