“Is that worst performance under my management? Yes, I think so,” said the Chelsea manager.
“We hadn’t lost with this result at home before. The performance was poor today, but in football it can happen if you’re not at your best and don’t play with your best mentality.
“We have to come back, stay focused on our results and make sure this is our only poor day.
“All the things were wrong. We didn’t play how we wanted to, Sunderland showed fantastic spirit and played better.
“We were not able to come back into the game. It was a bad day. Everything was difficult today.”
Ancelotti denied the performance was down to the absence of John Terry, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien, or that it was a backlash to the firing of assistant manager Ray Wilkins.
“I don’t think we missed Ray today,” he said.
“We lost because Sunderland played better than us, not because of that. Could we have done without the distraction? Absolutely.”
“Sometimes we’ve had some players out in the past, some important players and the team’s played well. Today was different.
“We were not able to play our football. This happens.
“Terry trained yesterday but at the end of the training session he had pain on his nerve in his hamstring. I expect him to be back for the next game (at Birmingham.)