Jacob Carney after Sunderland U211-3 Southampton U21

Jacob Carney hailed the half-time turnaround in his side’s fortunes as Sunderland’s U21s went down against Southampton on Monday afternoon.

The first-half could not have gone much worse for Sunderland, going three behind – and Carney believes his side just wasn’t at it at the Academy of Light.

He told SportsByte: “First half, I thought we were miles off it. It wasn’t anywhere near what we wanted it to be. It’s not how we train so we need to play like we train.

“Second-half, we improved and thought we were the better team. I thought we deserved to have a second goal, but it’s one of those things.”

“It’s just one of those things that happens. Sometimes you’re not with it, can’t win every day.”

While an own goal by Olly Lancashire brought Sunderland back in the frame, Carney thinks they should have done more as they were “the better side” when play resumed.

“We went in, Murt’s told us what we need to do, what we need to change.

“And to be fair we stuck to what he said and we did well. We just were unlucky not to get more goals than we did,” he added.

It reinforced the belief that you just need to get over things when it is going badly and not take poorer starts to heart as it might affect the performances later on.

“If things aren’t going that way, you can’t dwell on things. You’ve just got to get over it, and yeah as you say in the first half, there was dwelling and it becomes a big mess up,” Carney continued.

Sunderland U21 are next in action in the Premier League 2 Cup next Monday, when they face Wolves – but Carney from the looks of things is not looking forward to it!