Moyes impressed by Sunderland response

David Moyes believes the resilience his players showed on Tuesday night bodes well for the future.

Having produced a dismal display to go down 2-0 at home to Swansea over the weekend, the already-relegated Black Cats gave a much-improved display against Arsenal three days later.

They frustrated the top-four chasing Gunners for large swathes of the game at the Emirates until an Alexis Sanchez double handed the hosts victory.

But manager Moyes saw enough fight from his players to look past the final result and focus on the positives.

Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

“We can put our name to that performance,” he said. “We didn’t like Saturday’s – the players were well aware of that and they didn’t like the performance either.

“Against Arsenal, 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 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.

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