SUNDERLAND’S players didn’t have to provide financial compensation for Saturday’s embarrassment at Southampton, so it is to their credit that they have decided to put their hands in their pocket to refund the match tickets of the 2,600 supporters who travelled to the south coast.

Assuming that the money is split between the 14 players who were on the field, the refund works out at around £4,500-a-man, hardly a fortune for players paid up to £50,000-a-week, but that’s not the point. The gesture is still to be commended.

Yet it also feels somewhat unnecessary given the trials and tribulations that inevitably accompany life as a football fan.

Are we now saying that fans have the right to demand a certain level of performance, otherwise they can expect financial redress for their support?

Who is the arbiter of what is acceptable and what is not? Is a 4-0 defeat at Crystal Palace worse than a 6-0 reverse at Chelsea? Would a defeat at Northampton in the third round of the FA Cup be an even more heinous crime that shipping eight goals at Southampton? And what about if Sunderland win at Anfield at the start of December? Do the fans have to pay £10 more?

Football’s unpredictability is part of its appeal, and while there was plenty of anger at the final whistle on Saturday, that is already beginning to abate.

I know plenty of supporters who are already regaling fellow fans with tales of “I was there”, and in another few years, there’ll be 26,000 people claiming they suffered in the stands rather than 2,600.

Football supporters are a fairly stoic breed, and while no one likes to see their side lose, an away game at the opposite end of the country tends to form part of a wider social weekend.

A night away with the lads and lasses, a few beers before the game and then 90 minutes of suffering before the fun resumes. That generally tends to be the way of things.

That’s not to say that players don’t have a responsibility to those who pay their wages, and it’s not to suggest that Saturday’s display was in any way acceptable, with too many players effectively downing tools in the closing stages.

But it’s important to keep things in perspective. Sunderland lost, albeit heavily, and the world went on. If supporters don’t like that, no one is making them travel to Selhurst Park for the next away game a week on Monday.