Nordi Mukiele made a scathing assessment of Sunderland after their 2-0 loss to Bournemouth.

The Cherries claimed their first Premier League victory of the campaign thanks to goals from Marcus Tavernier and Evanilson. For their opponents, it was more of the same: four successive defeats in the English top tier have left them down in 19th position on a tally of just four points.

·‘I don't think Sunderland deserve it as fans and as a city’

After being loaned to Bayer Leverkusen for the 2024/25 campaign, Mukiele moved from Paris Saint-Germain to Tyneside in last summer’s transfer window. He was one of the key players that pushed the Black Cats from survival hopefuls into continental contenders as they finished in 7th spot.

Europe is an extra factor for the players to handle, but it is not an excuse for what Mukiele is seeing.

"This game is just what we are looking [like] from the beginning of the season, to be honest with you. We are not good enough. If we deserve to be where we are today, definitely. Why? I don't know.

“Maybe because we became arrogant, this is what I think. It's just the beginning, football is like this.

"You can accept and just stand up and go back to work. If I believe we can go back to the top again, yeah, I believe about this. It depends about what we really want and this starts in training because we don't do enough and after you can see it on the pitch. You cannot lie about football and today, I don't want to say we didn't want to win this game, but it didn't look like we want something.

“It is difficult at the moment., I believe if you work hard in training the game is going to be the same but today was not a good game for us and we just have to fight to be better for the next.

“We struggled everywhere. We don't score enough; we concede so much. If I have to compare last season we didn't concede as much as we did last season. I don't want to say it's attack or defence, it's all of us, we are not good to all the part. We have to be back in our basics how we were last season.

"Maybe we should stop to watch back last season because this is a new season, and everyone is better and we have to be better because if you are not in a level in this league we will just stay where we are.

“I don't think Sunderland deserve it as fans and as a city, so we need to do better and we have to work and be much professional and be on a level every week, not just one weekend, every weekend.

“If we don't, we will stay where we are because today to be honest with you we definitely deserve to be where we are and we know what we have to do to be out of this position because I don't like this position.

“I hate those positions so I will not sleep well because I don't like to lose anyways and I don't like to be in this position where we are. We have to fight, all of us from up and down we have to fight and try to find the solution to be out of this position."