David Moyes and Mike Phelan share their thoughts on the key talking points from Saturday's game.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
DM: ““It’s good to be using the word ‘another’ as we’ve got another win today, let’s hope we’re using it more often. We need to get another win on the board just as quickly. I’m delighted with the result today; back-to-back wins is something for us to build in and help us grow in confidence. Both strikers were on the scoresheet, we got a clean sheet; it’s been a good day."
MP: “Our approach to the game was positive and I thought, particularly in the first half, we were on the front foot. It’s difficult to stand here and talk about what we did positively in the game given the end result. But we did do some things positively. We created opportunities – we didn’t score from them and end up on the end of a 3-0 defeat.
TAKING CHANCES
DM: “There were chances at both ends. I thought Hull had opportunities, but we had a goalkeeper on top of his game and we’ve got two centre-forwards who at the moment, when the ball drops, they look like they are going to score. What happened between the boxes was not always great, but we had a goalkeeper in great form and two centre-forwards in great form as well.”
MP: “I’m disappointed and there are two sides to it really. Attacking-wise we were quite good at times and yet our defending was quite poor at times. That is where we are as a side at the moment and we know we have to be more clinical at the attacking end of the field. Yes we’re short in that area, but we created quite a few chances in this game and had we taken one of those early on it might have given us a bit more confidence.”
DEFOE’S LANDMARK STRIKE
DM: “It’s a landmark for him, and it has to be special,” said David Moyes, after Defoe’s latest success helped secure Sunderland a much-needed 3-0 win. “t’s a brilliant thing, and only special people who know how to hit the back of the net know how hard that is to do. The way he got himself faced up one versus one and eventually got himself a free look at the goal – most of the times when he gets that, you know where it’s going to end up.”
MP: “We went in at half time 1-0 down through a mistake where we’ve lost our defensive shape to let a master finisher (Defoe) take his opportunity. We still felt as though we were in the game at that point and continued to have opportunities but if you can’t take them you come under pressure.
VIC’S DECISIVE DOUBLE
DM: “I thought he was immense today – probably even better than last week – and I think he’s got the capability to do that. He needs to be loved and I think the supporters have given him a real boost because he wants them to enjoy watching him play, so I hope they keep backing him. He’s a real handful.”
MP: “Our defending was ragged at times and possibly that comes from the frustration of what happened at the other end of the field. We should at least have been on a par with Sunderland on Saturday, but our finishing has let us down at one end and at the other, our control of the game has let us down as well. We conceded two poor goals from our point of view.”
FORWARD THINKING
DM: “I’ve not really thought so much about where we are, all I thought about after win number one was getting win number two. But two is not enough, and all we can do is look for number three now – the quicker we get that, the better. I don’t want us to get detached, I want to give us a real fighting chance.”
MP: “The position we find ourselves in right now, we seem to be okay but are losing football matches. We have to address that as a group. We're 12 games in, there's a lot of games to go, so this defeat, albeit against Sunderland who are below us, we still have 10 points on the board, yes it's disappointing, a little bit disturbing, but I still believe these players understand what it takes and hopefully we'll learn lessons really quickly.”