COULD anything be more quintessentially Sunderland than this? Score four goals without reply one week; concede four goals without reply the next. Just when it looks like the Black Cats are about a turn a corner, you can always rely on them to locate another dead end.

David Moyes is taking his squad on a four-day trip to New York this morning, but having challenged his players to earn their break in the wake of their comprehensive win over Crystal Palace, the Sunderland boss now finds himself having to justify his decision to effectively reward failure. The Big Apple? Plenty of Sunderland fans will feel this lot are already rotten to the core.

Their latest capitulation was shocking, but it can hardly be said to have been a surprise. Sunderland have been capable of throwing in a performance like this for a while now, and Moyes is merely the latest in a long line of managers to have found themselves scratching their head at the Black Cats’ enduring propensity to completely capitulate. As Gus Poyet can attest from his own experience of taking on Southampton, at least the current crop didn’t concede eight.

Niall Quinn spoke of a “gremlin at the club” more than a decade ago, and watching Sunderland crash to their heaviest defeat of the season, it certainly felt like a return to a well-worn script. Defensive embarrassment, a lack of organisation or resolve, players giving up in the final few minutes, thousands of supporters flocking to the exits long before full-time. That the opening two goals were scored by a player called Gabbiadini merely confirmed this was nothing we had not seen before.

“I don’t think anybody goes out not to do their job,” said Moyes, as he attempted to sift through the wreckage of yet another collapse.  “I think the players have given their all, it’s certainly not their effort.

“Maybe it’s quality at times, whether it be on the ball, passing it or controlling it or defending and doing the right things. But I don’t think it’s their effort I could question.

“I’m more worried that when the expectation comes on, and people are saying, ‘This is your game to win’, we’ve not been able to live up to that.  You know, we’ve had a good result away from home. Come on, can we pick it up again? We’ve not really been able to do that.

“It’s probably when we’re winning and folk think that Sunderland are going to go and do it again, that’s the sort of expectation I’m talking about. We will go and win games, I’ve no doubt about that. But when you’re off the back of a 4-0 win and folk are saying that Southampton haven’t done that well, that’s the sort of game where, at the moment, we don’t seem to be able to do it in.”

Moyes went on to accentuate the positives of Sunderland’s strong start, and was right to bemoan Manolo Gabbiadini’s opener, which saw Southampton’s £17m January signing convert Ryan Bertrand’s cross with his arm after the ball flicked off Lamine Kone’s head. It was probably handball, although when even Sunderland’s defenders were failing to mount much of an argument, it was always going to be hard for referee Paul Tierney to spot the offence.

As Moyes was right to point out, goals change games. Rarely, though, do they spark a collapse as embarrassing as the one that followed Gabbiadini’s opener at the weekend.

For the final hour, Sunderland were a disorganised rabble masquerading as a Premier League football team. Defensively, they were a disgrace with the solidity that been apparent at Selhurst Park disappearing every bit as quickly as it had appeared.

Whether it was with five at the back in the closing minutes of the first half, or with a flat back four for the whole of the second, Sunderland were unable to cope with the quality of Gabbiadini’s movement or the fluency of Southampton’s passing.

Kone reverted back to the lackadaisical defending that caused so much damage in the first half of the season, standing off Gabbiadini as he swivelled to drive in his second goal on the stroke of half-time. Billy Jones was tortured by Bertrand in Southampton’s full-back position throughout, and John O’Shea’s lack of pace and mobility was so chronic that he was hauled off at half-time.

Darron Gibson started well enough, but tired dramatically on his first Sunderland start, enabling the Saints’ midfielders to run amok in the second half. Steven Pienaar looked exactly what he is as he came off the substitutes’ bench in an unsuccessful attempt to change things, a 34-year-old limping towards the end of his career. And the less said about Wahbi Khazri’s nine-minute cameo the better.

Khazri simply stood and watched as Bertrand skipped past him to set up Southampton’s third goal  - Jason Denayer slid the full-back’s dangerous low cross into his own net – and was nowhere to be seen again as Shane Long played a one-two with James Ward-Prowse in stoppage time before sealing Sunderland’s fate.

By the time the final whistle was blown, in front of thousands of empty seats, it was apparent a large number of the home team’s players had thrown in the towel. Given they find themselves at the foot of the table, that hardly augurs well for their survival hopes.

“There was a good vibe in the dressing room before the game,” said Pienaar, “And you could see that for the first 20 minutes, but as soon as we got a setback, I don’t know what it is but we have to fight through it and just try to get it right.

“We got a point against Spurs and a win against Palace, and this was a good chance for us to get three points, especially playing at home. It was very disappointing to lose again, and especially in the manner we did in the second half.”