Sunderland winger Will Buckley insists the players did not give up against Southampton.
Saints fired eight past hapless Sunderland on Saturday.
But Buckley says: "I've never experienced anything like that professionally.
"It's a horrible feeling, especially considering how many fans we brought down.
"There were a lot of fans still there at the end. If it was other people, I don't think they'd have been there. It's gutting for us and we let ourselves down.
"We let the manager down and all the staff who have shown good faith in us.
"We came into the game confident that we could get a result and for the first 10 minutes, it looked like we could do that.
"After that we made errors, got punished and I suppose our heads went down. The first two goals were poor mistakes from us and it cost us.
"From then on, we capitulated and it's not good enough really.
"I don't agree that we gave up. But everything went wrong and we came up against a team in form."
