David Moyes and Jose Mourinho have the final say on Sunday’s Premier League clash at the Stadium of Light.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marcus Rashford were on target for Manchester United, with Sunderland heading back to the drawing board ahead of next weekend’s home tie against West Ham United.
Check out what both managers had to say about the moments that mattered in the comments below.
Moyes’ overall thoughts: “I’m disappointed we haven’t take anything from the game and I think there was mitigating circumstances for that, but ultimately we’re not here to blame referees. Things today didn’t go for us. We went a goal down – it was a poor goal to concede – and because of that we were chasing it. I didn’t think we started too well but we’d began to grow into the game, but that was it [after the second goal].”
Mourinho’s overall thoughts: “We got the three points and it was a solid performance against a team which is sad – that’s normal – and when you play against a team that is sad, if you score before them the game is almost over because it’s difficult to react. They fought hard and they gave everything they could, but we controlled the match and with the immediate second goal it was finished.”
Moyes on Ibrahimovic: “We don’t get tight enough for the first two goals. The first one is quite easy to defend; he controls and turns before a really good finish from distance, but you would hope we would be getting a block in. The second one was a killer right after half-time, and again we could have done more.”
Mourinho on Ibrahimovic: “The game was obviously open at 0-0 but we were in control without danger. We were playing quite compact and quite solid, but sometimes you need these players to break it and normally every top team has a few players who can make a difference. Zlatan did that and after that the team could play better.”
Moyes on sending off: “Look, there was a couple of things that didn’t go for us today – I’m not saying it would have made a massive difference because Manchester United had good control – but we were in the game and it was key we remained in it. The sending off changed that. I don’t want to blame the referee, but I didn’t think it was a good decision.”
Moyes on goal drought: “It’s been a big problem but if you look again you’ll probably see it was a penalty kick on Victor. He gets impeded as he’s about to shoot and maybe one or two things just aren’t running our way at the moment. I understand your point, though, and our build-up is making it difficult to create and make opportunities, so that’s one of the difficulties.
Moyes on Anichebe: “Victor got one of our real opportunities and, on other day, it probably gets given as a penalty kick. He was impeded as he was about to shoot and we didn’t get it, but let’s hope he can get some goals. For him to get 90 minutes today was good after being out for such a long time.”
Mourinho on Shaw: “A very solid performance and I told him that he came off because he had a yellow card and the crowd was putting pressure on the referee. He didn’t make mistakes, he was confident on the ball and he was focussed, so it was easy for me to tell him ‘good performance’.”
Moyes on the run-in: “There is a game less which means it’s tougher. There’s no hiding the fact we’re in a difficult position, but we have a home game next and let’s see if we can get a win and get some momentum. We’ll keep going.”
Mourinho on the run-in: “After Manchester City and Liverpool won, if we hadn’t won today it would have almost been mathematically impossible. It was important for us to win and that was the main objective; we did that and a part of it is no more injuries to add because we’re still fighting for our situation in the Premier League.”