Sunderland midfielder Seb Larsson insists the players are not using FA Cup obligations as an excuse for last night's loss at Blackburn Rovers.
The Black Cats put in a poor performance to go down 2-0 at Ewood Park but the Swede has made it clear that the weekend's 1-1 FA Cup quarter-final draw with Everton has nothing to do with their inept showing.
"We've got loads to play for in the league and we want to push on and finish as high as we can. We don't want to let the season fizzle out. The cup comes along when it comes along, until then we won't worry about it.
"The good thing is we've got a game (against QPR) in a couple of days again. We need to dust ourselves off and be ready for that and make sure we get the three points at home.
"We should be turning up for games like last night. You can never guarantee a scoreline, but we shouldn't perform like that.
"We know what we can do and we've done it plenty of times over the last few months.
"When you know that, sometimes you don't understand why things like this happen. You just have to hold your hands up and say we weren't good enough.""We can't just concentrate on the cup and we're not going to use that as an excuse whatsoever," he told the Sunderland Echo.
