Jeremain Lens backing Sunderland to spoil Pep’s party

The thought of facing Manchester City ever again should be enough to get new Sunderland manager David Moyes waking up in a cold sweat.

In the early weeks of his tenure at former club Manchester United, he was on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline at the Etihad Stadium.

That set the tone for Moyes’ brief stint in charge at Old Trafford, and another big defeat to the Citizens – this time 3-0 on home soil – six months later was arguably the final nail in his coffin.

But while Moyes now has to head back to the Etihad Stadium for a huge test of his mettle in his first league outing with the Black Cats, midfielder Jeremain Lens insists this time it is Pep Guardiola whose welcome party will be spoiled.

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Sunderland came from behind against Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund to draw 1-1 last week, with Lens providing the assist for Lamine Kone to keep the north-east outfit unbeaten in pre-season.

And the Dutchman, who scored four goals in 23 appearance for the Black Cats last term, is confident a similar performance can see them take all three points home from Manchester.

“We didn’t lose in pre-season and if we can continue along that line I think we will do very well,” said Lens.

“The first game is always difficult and we start against a big team in Manchester City.

“We need to defend like we did against Dortmund and try to score to score one goal, or hopefully more.

“We trained very hard in pre-season and hopefully we can start the season well.

“As everybody knows we finished last season with a good record and the new manager is trying to start this year as we ended the last, and we have the players and we have the quality to do so.

“With this squad we need to do better than we did last year.”