David Moyes and Alan Pardew have their say on Sunderland’s late defeat to Crystal Palace at the Stadium of Light.
Sunderland
Moyes: “It’s our own fault. It’s no-one else’s fault. The players need to take responsibility, it can’t always be me leading them by the hand telling them where they should be and what they should do. They have to stand up and take a bit of responsibility for what they do on the pitch.”
Pardew: “I thought they played some decent stuff today, Januzaj was a problem for us and Jermain got the two goals which is typical of him. You think there is a team to work with there for David and probably the quick response from us when they went 2-0 up affected their mentality a little bit, and that’s natural. Any victory will change that.”
Christian Benteke
Moyes: “We’ll need to defend better. You can’t concede the goals we’ve conceded and have a chance - not in a million years. For someone not to go with Benteke when we gave away that poor free-kick in the last minute. Benteke is arguably the best header of the ball in the Premier League and no-one even got close to him. We gave him a free run and a jump.”
Pardew: “We would never have scored three goals in the second half of last season but Christian and a bit of confidence in the group has changed that. I thought Townsend was going to get the winner when he cut inside, it was unusual for him to miss in that situation. It was a great win for us and I’m chuffed.”
Timing
Moyes: “We never gave ourselves a chance - after getting two in front we conceded within 30 seconds. We didn't do the basics. We had a chance to clear for the first goal and didn't then we had a chance to defend the back post for the second. If we had [done the basics] we would have won the game. I'm really disappointed to concede three goals from two up. We need to do much better.”
Pardew: “The second goal was probably Sunderland’s best spell – I think it was offside by the way – so I was stood on the sidelines scratching my head, wondering how we were going to get this back. Without any thought process it was 2-1 and then I really felt confident that we could get something out of the game. It was a terrific victory for us in the end which looked like being a defeat.”
