SUNDERLAND captain Corry Evans has offered his apologies to the fans for their 6-0 hammering against Bolton Wanderers yesterday and branding the loss as ‘unacceptable’.

The Black Cats suffered their heaviest defeat and produced their worst performance of the season which head coach Lee Johnson fronted the blame for.

But 5,000 plus Sunderland supporters watched on in horror as Ian Evatt’s side dismantled them to the point where they conceded four goals in the second half. It’s the fourth time they’ve suffered a hammering this season without scoring a goal.

They drop to third in the League One table but face an anxious wait from other results with teams above and directly below them due to play games in hand.

Evans has urged for solidarity as the players attempt to pick themselves up with 17 league games to go.

"I’d just like to apologise firstly to the fans for them travelling in their numbers today, we let them down and feel really bad for them. We need to put it right next week" said the 31-year-old. 

"We have to stick together, it's an off day but it’s happened a couple of times this season and we clearly haven’t learnt from our mistakes. We have to learn from these mistakes if we want to achieve promotion this season.

"Our preparation was fine, we just started the game badly on the back foot,from our kick-off we ended up going back and that set the tone for the game.

"Obviously the first goal was a mix up and from then on we were chasing it a bit, go 2-0 down and the third goal, we talked about getting the next goal and they got it. We were sort of on the back foot from then and the game ran away from us.

"To lose in the manner that we did, 6-0, is just unacceptable. There are a lot of things to look back on and learn from as a team and as a group but we believe in the way we play and the way to try and be successful going forward."

Nexu up for the Black Cats is a home game against Doncaster Rovers.