Ricky Sbragia conceded that Sunderland were well beaten as his first game since being named as the club’s permanent manager ended in a 3-0 defeat by Everton at Goodison Park yesterday.

“We knew it was going to be difficult – and it was,” Sbragia said. “In general, they were far superior in all departments. They worked extremely hard and we didn’t do ourselves justice.” The 52-year-old, who had been caretaker manager since Roy Keane’s departure, was given the full-time job on Saturday after guiding the club to seven points from four matches, including wins over Hull City and West Bromwich Albion. He had been Keane’s assistant and was previously a coach at Bolton Wanderers and Manchester United. Niall Quinn, the Sunderland chairman, said that Sbragia was the unanimous choice of the board, which had also considered several more high-profile candidates.

Sbragia has signed an 18-month contract and said that he was happy with its relatively brief length.

“It doesn’t feel good after losing, but I’m really looking forward to it, looking forward to the challenge ahead,” he said. “The ambition at present is just to stay in the Premier League. I’d done a lot of thinking in the weeks previously, it was going well for us and in the last couple of days it was finalised in my mind that [the permanent role] was what I wanted to do. I was enjoying it.”

He is expected to make signing a defender a priority next month, as well as trimming Sunderland’s large squad. “I’ll have a chat with the coaching staff and with the window opening up [analyse] what we think we need,” Sbragia said.