JEREMAIN LENS believes there should be no excuses and that Sunderland’s players should be looking at themselves following defeat at Bournemouth.

The Black Cats were second best in all departments against the newly-promoted Cherries, and went down to two early goals to consign Dick Advocaat’s side to their fourth defeat in six Premier League games.

Sunderland were denied an opportunity to get back into the game when Lens’ second-half header was ruled out for offside, despite replays showing the Dutch international to be behind the last defender as the cross was played in.

But Lens did not want to blame the officials – and believes Sunderland need to do some soul-searching if they are to avoid another relegation battle.

“Unfortunately, I scored but due to a small mistake from the referee it didn’t count,” said Lens, after Callum Wilson and Matt Ritchie gave Bournemouth the lead with only nine minutes on the clock, before Younes Kaboul was sent off in the second half. “It can happen. I don’t blame the referee because everyone can make mistakes. If at that moment it would have been a goal, it might have been a different game.

“I don’t think I was onside. That’s why I don’t blame the referee. My first thought was that I was offside, but as I know now, I was onside. Everybody makes mistakes.

“We as players make mistakes, that’s why we conceded two goals, and we don’t blame one player – we blame the whole team. I don’t blame anyone for the defeat, it’s the team.

"There should be no excuses.”

Defeat on the south coast ensures that Sunderland are winless in their first six games for the fourth consecutive season, and Lens feels the squad are under-achieving, considering that they escaped relegation last season after Advocaat took over.

“I think the squad we have now is good – we have very good players,” said the winger, who was a summer signing from Dinamo Kyiv. “If we’re playing for relegation everyone needs to have a look in the mirror because it is not where we should be with this team.

“I didn’t play last season but as everyone saw it wasn’t a problem for the players in the last few games to show the mentality. We have the same players now with a few new ones, so I don’t think it’s a mental problem. It’s more to do with trying to find the solution as a team.

“As we showed last week we can do it, it’s not like we can’t do it. Hopefully we will find the reason why we don’t start games well and do it better the next time.

“It is not a good start as everybody knows, and we need to find the solution. In time, all the emotions from the game will have died down so we can speak about it, and hopefully we do it in the future better than we started on Saturday.

“After the Leicester City game everyone was disappointed, but we started to show we could play better than that first game, and step by step we did better. Today, I don’t know why, was an off day.”