IT spoke volumes that some of the sell-out crowd at the Stadium of Light had seen enough a mere 16 minutes into the game.

Those who left their seats at that point may have just gone to get a drink to drown their sorrows after watching Gabriel Agbonlahor give Aston Villa a 2-0 lead on Wearside, but by half-time a pretty sizeable chunk of the 45,000-strong crowd had seen enough.

Pictures of Black Cats fans walking across the Wearmouth Bridge as the first half drew to a close could prove to be one of the most telling images of a season that is unravelling before the Black Cats’ eyes.

Saturday’s humiliating 4-0 defeat felt like a watershed moment for Gus Poyet and, even though he vowed to fight on, it remains to be seen whether Ellis Short still believes the Uruguayan is the man to keep Sunderland in the Premier League.

If he makes a move now the pool of potential candidates would be limited, but if he waited until the summer it might be too late and falling out of the Premier League at this point would be disastrous.

The Black Cats quest to keep their status intact took a major hit after Burnley recorded a shock win over Manchester City to reduce the gap to one point, and having not won a league game since January 31 it is difficult to imagine anything other than another relegation dogfight over the course of the next nine games.

Undoubtedly they are in a battle, but compared to last season the Black Cats do not look like they have the fight in them to avoid dropping into the Championship.

It was even more concerning that a group of players – made up largely of those who were part of the great escape almost 12 months ago – appeared to throw the towel in after Christian Benteke put Tim Sherwood’s side ahead with 14 minutes gone.

Poyet insisted he has not lost the dressing room, but judging by this display the problems that are engulfing the Wearsiders are far more deep-rooted than meets the eye.

When Agbonlahor scored the visitors’ third he ran past four red and white shirts that were stood watching, while further forward there was no fluidity to their play.

The squad will probably come out this week and insist they are behind Poyet’s way of playing but it certainly didn’t look like it on Saturday.

A moment at the start of the second half pretty much a disastrous day for Sunderland when they played with only ten men while Seb Larsson received treatment for a gash on his ankle.

The Swedish midfielder didn’t appear until the 48th minute. with the team unaware they had started the second half a man down.

That came after Poyet’s men were booed when they came back out for the restart and Jack Rodwell admitted he would have done the same had he been in the crowd.

“It was a very difficult game,” the £10m signing from Manchester City said. “One of the toughest of my career. Coming in 4-0 down at half time, I don’t think that’s happened before. You’ve just got to try and pick yourself off the floor, keep fighting.

“That first half is difficult to explain. We made a couple of silly mistakes at the back which cost us two goals. Some days those don’t go in and you recover.

“Before we knew it we were two-down and our heads went a little bit. We couldn’t keep our composure.

“Booing is part and parcel of football and you can’t let it affect you. They are entitled to their opinion. If I had been watching I would have probably done the same.

“It’s good to stick it out and I thank those fans that did stay, though of course I understand why many left. I don’t blame them for walking out but it’s great if they can stay.”

To put things into perspective Aston Villa had only scored four times on the road before Saturday and Sunderland hardly made it difficult for the visitors to double their tally for the season.

Benteke had space to tuck home Leandro Bacuna’s low cross before John O’Shea failed to intercept a routine ball forward leaving Agbonlahor to finish past Costel Pantilimon.

Agbonlahor grabbed his second when he ran into the box unchallenged and Benteke added a fourth from another Bacuna cross.

“We’ve just got to keep fighting now,” Rodwell said. “Pick ourselves off the floor. We’ve got to look at this game and not dwell on it.

“It’s just three points lost. We got beat but at the end of the day whether you lose 1-0, 4-0 or 8-0 it’s just three points gone.”