Moyes on the boys v Arsenal: ultimately outclassed

John McCormick writes:

I wouldn’t have bothered putting Januzaj on, wouldn’t even have bothered telling him to turn up.

But other than that, I can’t really disagree with David Moyes today, given that Arsenal really did need to win to give themselves a top four chance, and they really did have to make an effort to get that win.

We can put our name to that performance. We didn’t like Saturday’s – the players were well aware of that and they didn’t like [the performance] either.

Tonight we showed a lot of character and a great deal of effort. We performed in a good way which gave us a chance.

We made some good chances, but we just can’t seem to get that first goal in the games and tonight we had one or two opportunities to do that.

As a professional in any walk of life you have to bounce back and show what you can do, and I thought the players did that tonight.

We were ultimately outclassed by the better team. Arsenal are one of the division’s form sides at this moment in time.

We contained them for long periods, made some chances and passed the ball well when we got it tonight, so there were lots of good things.

Jordan made some wonder saves at different times. Good on him – everyone who follows Sunderland knows just how good he is.

The players deserved the applause they got at the end – the performance merited it.