Sunderland 4 Sheffield Wednesday 0: Sobering reality check as slapdash Owls are architects of their own downfall

Regis le Bris was talking about Sunderland's next game, but could easily have been speaking about the one Sheffield Wednesday had just lost.

When a team who were so good against Plymouth Argyle on the opening weekend get pasted 4-0 seven days later – and are lucky it was only four – you cannot help but wonder if thought they could just turn up and win.

"It's always very close between self-confidence and belief and maybe being a little too lazy and making one step less," reflected Danny Rohl when it was his turn to talk to the media.

"This is what we can take from this game. It always starts at 0-0 and you have to invest in such a game. During the game you can make special things and I believe my team can do this and we will do it together."

Just as they were never the world beaters Plymouth Argyle made them look, so they are not as dreadful as Sunderland painted them, but they certainly cannot rock up to grounds at the Stadium of Light and expect to breeze games.

The league season is only two games old and already there are only three teams with a 100 per cent record. The Owls are not one of them.

Mishaps occur all the time over a 46-game season but mullerings like this do not – at least not to teams as good as Rohl's looked on the opening weekend.

Last time Wednesday were at this ground, in May, Sunderland were managerless and desperate for the season to end, their mood as black as the strip the away team was modelling for the first time. A fanbase on a high after a brilliant start to the season snapped it up, but long before referee Dean Whitehouse mercifully called time on a Sunday's hammering, they were cursing it.

Before their trip to Wearside, manager Rohl revealed he had shown his players plenty of clips of areas they needed to improve on after beating Plymouth, then Hull City in the League Cup. Open in midfield, sloppy in possession, slapdash following runners, this post-match debrief could be an epic.

Just 106 days on from that last meeting, Sunderland had a new manager in le Bris and were a completely different beast, 3-0 up inside 25 minutes. They should have led by four at the interval and within two minutes of the restart, they did.

The Black Cats were hungry, energetic and skillful, well worthy of the scoreline. But to say the Owls were architects of their own downfall would be putting it mildly.

Against in-your-face pressing they blacked out and by the time they came around the situation was irretrievable.

After a bright start which had seen Jamal Lowe close down centre-back Luke O'Nien inside the first 10 seconds and Djiedi Gassma drag a shot wide, they switched off at a Patrick Roberts free-kick.

When Roberts dinked it in, no one followed Dennis Cirkin, who headed his side into an 11th-minute lead.

Five minutes later it was two. This goal was even worse.

Sunderland showed their approach very early on when their full-backs were just that, the deepest defenders as if we were playing pre-Herbert Chapman football whilst the central defenders followed Lowe and Josh Windass as they dropped deep.

So when Windass, playing in the hole, came all the way short to pick up a straight pass from goalkeeper James Beadle, he should have known O'Nien was behind him. Even if he did not, he certainly ought to have known that part of the pitch is not for fancy backheels.

He flicked the ball into the defender's shin pads and it ricocheted to Eliezer Mayenda, who kept his cool to beat Beadle.

Svante Ingelsson had the ball in Sunderland's net quickly afterwards, only for the offside flag to go up. Anyone tempting to blame bad luck as the Black Cats trampled across their path was kidding themselves. Wednesday's bad play was entirely responsible.

So the last person who needed to be playing O'Nien onside for the third was Windass.

When Chris Riggs' shot was blocked, Wednesday did not do their job at the corner, no one following the defender in as he chased the deflection on a Roberts' shot and poke it past the onrushing Beadle.

Wednesday were shell-shocked. Only Beadle's low save to his right in first-half stoppage time stopped Roberts making it worse still.

But whatever Rohl said at half-time, as he brought on Michael Smith for Gassama and shifted Jamal Lowe wide had no effect. Unless, of course, he told Yan Valery not to follow Jack Clarke as was released by a midfield pass, and to let Mayenda tap in the pullback.

Rohl swapped the creative Windass for the destructive Liam Palmer in midfield, went 5-4-1 and tried to stem the bleeding.

They at least managed that. Substitute Smith getting the ball stuck under his feet as he was played clean through then ballooning a stoppage-time pull-back to the delight of fans who never tiring of seeing Tyneside footballers struggle, prevented them from claiming a consolation that would have been indecently scant.

Reality checks do not come much more sobering than this.

Sheffield Wednesday: Beadle; Valery (Valentin 54), Iorfa, Bernard, M Lowe (Johnson 69); Ingelsson, Bannan; Gassama (Smith HT), Musaba, Windass (Palmer 54); J Lowe (Ugbo 69).

Unused substitutes: Charles, Ihiekwe, Kobacki, McNeill.

Sunderland: Patterson; Hume, O'Nien, Alese, Cirkin; Neil; Roberts (Mundle 85), Rigg (Aouchiche 78), Jobe, Clarke; Mayenda (Rusyn 78).

Unused substitutes: Moore, Ba, Triantis, Hjelde, Ekwah, Johnson.

Referee: D Whitestone (Northampton).