Xabi Alonso takes aim at his Chelsea players after shock Sunderland defeat | Football

Xabi Alonso was not looking for excuses after his Chelsea side was beaten 1-0 at Sunderland, admitting they did not defend or attack well enough.

The Black Cats were bottom of the Premier League table with just one win in nine games when they welcomed Chelsea to the Stadium of Light on Sunday afternoon.

The Blues returned to London with nothing, though, with an Enzo Le Fee penalty the difference between the sides.

There was controversy over the penalty decision, with Levi Colwill adjudged to have hauled down Brian Brobbey, although it looked like both players were pulling the shirt of the other.

Chelsea goalkeeper Mike Penders hit out at the decision, telling Sky Sports: ‘For me it wasn’t a penalty. He barely touched him, I think it was the other way round. He grabbed him.’

Alonso was not singing from the same hymn sheet, telling the BBC: ‘I haven’t seen it back. Nothing to comment on the referee. It is something that is our fault. We could have done better.’

He added: ‘I think it’s an action where he can defend better. It’s our mistake.’

Alonso was impressed by Brobbey over the game, not just in winning the penalty, but felt his defenders could have done better against the big Dutchman.

‘From transitions out of almost nothing he got a couple of chances, he got the penalty as well,’ he said. ‘But we have been preparing for that, we have tried, we could have done better.

‘He is not unstoppable. He is stoppable but when you defend better than we did today.’

Clearly the former Real Madrid boss did not like he saw from his defenders and he was also frustrated with what his forwards produced.

‘I think we didn’t deserve more than probably one point,’ he said. ‘Not much happened, to be honest. We didn’t produce enough to deserve to win.

‘We were against a low block we missed a bit of patience, a bit of quality, a bit of creativity on the last third to create more chances, you need to be more consistent to move the ball from one side to the other that we didn’t do good enough.’

It was suggested to Alonso that Sunderland’s physical superiority meant they could bully Chelsea, but the manager said: ‘Not bullied. There’s situations that we could have defended better. Situations that we could have had better advantages in attack.’

Defeat left Chelsea fifth in the table, while Sunderland climbed to 18th.

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