Sunderland defender Patrick van Aanholt believes that communication problems have resulted in the Black Cats' poor defensive showing this season.

Sunderland suffered an extremely disappointing 3-0 home loss at the hands of Everton at the Stadium of Light on Monday night and new signings Javier Manquillo and Papy Djilobodji both endured a terrible time throughout the course of the game.

Left-back van Aanholt was also seemingly left disappointed by the performances of Spaniard Manquillo and Senegalese Djilobodji and the Dutchman has suggested that language problems have caused the Sunderland backline to perform so poorly so far this season.

Van Aanholt said in the Chronicle: "Of course the new players need time to adapt.

"We saw against Everton, we had the right-back Manquillo and at centre-back, Papy.

"Papy is familiar with the Premier League, having played for Chelsea, but we need to help them in training and try to speak the same language because it's very hard to understand them on the pitch.

"But we're training every day with them, so we're trying to explain to them how to adapt, how to play, and they're taking it very well.

"We just want to move forward now."