Manager David Moyes has reflected on Sunderland’s loss on Sunday to Manchester City and he believes positives can be taken from the showing the players put in.
Losing the game two nil at the Stadium of Light on the day, ultimately it was City’s clinical quality that won through, but we had our moments in the game and didn’t make life that easy for them in reality.
Speaking to the Official Site in his post game press conference, whilst Moyes couldn’t take points from the game, he focused on the positives and he called for that kind of showing now in games that we are more expected to win.
‘I thought our players did a really good job of containing them and stopping them, while also creating some opportunities for ourselves. We`re not in the same league as far as budgets go and we`re nowhere near the top of the league, but I think you have to praise our players for their effort and commitment.’
He went on to say.
‘Last weekend it hit the crossbar and didn`t bounce right for us and today it hits the post and the result is the same. Eventually one of them will go in but we have create more chances to do that, for example we had three great opportunities to score for corners and it`s probably one of the first games where we`ve looked like doing that. They did execute the game plan and we have boys that can run – Didier, Seb – and I thought the two full-backs were excellent today, so we put it to them and they did everything they could. We just lacked a bit of quality, which I`ve mentioned a few times, which is what makes the difference.’
Midfielder Seb Larsson was also speaking post game and quoted by Sky Sports he said that Sunderland just had to keep faith, take the positives from avoiding the drop in previous years and ensure that the effort put into Manchester City applies for all the coming games and then he’s confident our luck in front of goal will turn.
‘Of course we are not going to give in – why would we? It’s about picking up a few back-to-back results and all of a sudden, things change. I know it’s easier said than done, but of course we are going to keep going and keep believing we are going to do it. As long as there are enough games to get enough points, that’s what we are going to do.’
One thing Larsson didn’t want us to do was to get distracted by events elsewhere, as although we need to know what opportunities are available, it basically comes down to what we do now.
‘Of course you know what’s going on, it would be silly of me to say anything else. Of course you do. Of course you would like the other teams not to win but over the course of a season that’s not going to happen. You know roughly what is required points-wise to stay in this league and regardless of what the other teams do, it’s going to end up being somewhere around that tally, the way it’s been the last few years. We need to reach that. It’s up to us to get enough points and, if we get to that sort of level, we’ll be okay. If we don’t, we obviously won’t be okay.’
