Football: Victor Anichebe embarrasses himself on social media

Victor Anichebe warms up before the Premier League match between Sunderland and Crystal Palace. Photo / Getty Images

Twitter and footballers. A way that the latter can interact with fans directly about a matter of topics... or so you would think.

After Sunderland's 1-0 defeat by West Ham in the Premier League on Saturday, Victor Anichebe took to the social media platform to issue a rallying cry to everyone connected with the club.

The only problem with his tweet - he didn't write it.

In an embarrassing gaffe, the Nigerian forward simply copied and pasted a tweet to write from his social media manager - including the introductory message from the latter telling him what to post.

'Can you tweet something like: "Unbelievable support yesterday and great effort by the lads! Hard result to take! But we go again!",' Anichebe wrote on Sunday afternoon.

The message was hastily deleted but not quickly enough, with social media users pouring their scorn on him.

Anichebe joined Sunderland as a free agent in September and has made three substitute appearances for the Black Cats to date.

David Moyes' side remain rock-bottom of the Premier League - without a win in their nine matches so far.

'We started the game sloppily but recovered very well,' captain John O'Shea told the club website after losing to West Ham. 'We started the second half well and could have been in front.

'We needed to see out the game but unfortunately we switched off a little bit.

'Now we have to pick ourselves up off the floor. We want to start winning games as quickly as possible.'