Bruce lashes out at players - and former boss

Oct 25 2009 by James Hunter, Sunday Sun

STEVE BRUCE admitted Sunderland weren’t at the races as the Black Cats crashed 2-1 against his old club Birmingham.

The Black Cats were the width of a post away from forcing a draw in the dying minutes but Bruce refused to gloss over his side’s below-par display.

Goals from Liam Ridgewell and James McFadden won it for the Blues, while Sunderland’s consolation came courtesy of an own-goal from Scott Dann, but Darren Bent hit the post late on as Sunderland pushed for an equaliser.

Bruce said: “You could say I was disappointed. We didn’t really come to the party until the last half-hour, that was the disappointing thing.

“In the last half-hour we injected a bit of pace into the game and showed a bit of energy but it was too little, too late.

“You can’t play in the Premier League when you’ve got seven or eight players who, certainly in the first hour, weren’t at the races.

“We nearly got away with it because we made a couple of wonderful chances near the end to get an equaliser, but I’m not going to gloss over the first hour, when we’ve hit nowhere near the heights we are capable of.

“We thought the first goal was offside, but that is not going to mask over our performance in the first hour.”