Sunderland manager Dick Advocaat has hit out at his players after they slumped to a 4-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace.

The Black Cats were level at 0-0 after the first half, but Glenn Murray gave the London side the lead shortly after, before Yannick Bolasie netted a hat-trick.

Connor Wickham pulled one back for Sunderland, but the result leaves them just three points above the relegation zone.

Advocaat told BBC Sport: "We have to recover in 14 days with an away game against Stoke and we have to do better than we did today as this was not good enough.

"After the Newcastle game we did not see this performance coming. We had trained really well this week and the confidence had come back, but in the first half it was not really good. We gave the match away in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

"We could not cope with their pace, but I don't want to complain about the players. We win as a team and lose as a team. We still have six matches left and it's in our hands. You cannot lose 4-1 to Crystal Palace in a home game because we need to get results."

Sunderland have won just one game since January.