AARON Connolly got off to the perfect start in red and white with a goal for Sunderland's Under-21s in their 6-0 hammering of Derby County - but boss Graeme Murty was surprisingly unsatisfied with his side despite the emphatic victory.

After being an unused substitute in Friday night's 2-2 draw with Leeds United, it took Connolly just 25 minutes to make his mark for the Under-21s, latching on to a Tommy Watson through-ball and finishing clinically to double Sunderland's lead after Watson's opener. The striker - a free agent signing last month - got 45 minutes under his belt before being replaced at the break by Caden Kelly, who scored Sunderland's third against the Rams. The Black Cats wrapped up the rout in the second half with a second goal from Watson before Nazariy Rusyn and Jenson Jones struck late on.

"I'm in a bit of a quandary because I want to say well done for being so clinical and the scoreline is very flattering, but I think it's too flattering for the performance they put in," said Murty.

"So while I want to praise them, I need to keep them grounded because the performance was below what we'd want from them.

"I don't want to take away the happiness and the goals were excellent but for large swathes of the game we were below par."

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Murty added: "We should never be seduced by the scoreline positively or negatively because we need to make sure we understand what performance and development looks like.

"We aspire to be a performance and possession heavy team that is quite high pressing and high energy. Our possession was poor, the way we rotated the ball was too slow, we gave the ball away an inordinate amount of times and we kept giving the ball away over and over again.

"I was quieter on the sides waiting for people to fix things and we didn't. I'm looking for a bit of self regulation for the players to understand where we're going wrong and fixing it on the fly.

"The players need to be held to account not by me but by themselves, they need to know how to give and take clean feedback in the heat of the moment to fix issues.

"But I can't be too down because we've been on to them to be more clinical and they were, so I can't be too greedy. But I, as a developer of young people, can't be seduced by that, just like I'm not by negative results."

Connolly's first taste of action will please head coach Regis Le Bris, who has been impressed by the striker since his arrival.

Sunderland must now decide whether to include Connolly again when the Under-21s head for Huddersfield next week before first team action resumes when the Black Cats head to Hull City a week on Sunday.