Everton manager David Moyes was left frustrated with his team’s second-half performance at Sunderland when the teams drew 1-1 in the Premier League.
Moyes’ visitors were brilliant in the first 30 minutes and could have been further ahead than Iliman Ndiaye’s 1-0 lead.
Jack Grealish hit a post and Thierno Barry missed a shot, before Sunderland totally dominated the second half and equalized through Granit Xhaka.
Everton have drawn more Premier League games than any other team since Moyes returned to the club in January last season (10), but only three teams have more points away from home than the 21 in that time (Arsenal – 28, Crystal Palace – 25, Brentford – 23).
He said: “For 20 or 30 minutes I thought I would be disappointed if I went home with a point, and in the end I was glad we got a point. We missed a good chance to make it 2-0, then we sat back and that gave Sunderland a bit of confidence.”
“We didn’t handle the last 15 minutes of the first half very well and we didn’t handle the second half very well. We did everything we expected, it was a question of whether we would score.”
“Iliman Ndiaye scored a very good individual goal, Jack [Grealish] hit the post and when we miss [Thierno Barry’s] We didn’t have enough chances, but we conceded the goal immediately after kick-off. Goals make a difference and can change how you feel as a manager.
“Coming to Sunderland, a point is not a bad result, but after 30 minutes I felt ‘we are good here, we should get a result’. You could see it was a lucky goal.” [for Sunderland]It was a detour but if you shoot, sometimes you get a little lucky and they got a little lucky.
“I’m struggling to get a lot of positives out of our football in the second half. The main thing was not conceding a second goal. That summed up the night when we couldn’t find a pass to get that second goal.
“I wanted a lot more and we are capable of achieving it. I think we have a good team, we played quite well during some periods, but not enough.”
Unlike Everton’s rather dull start to the season, Sunderland are flying and would have finished second in the standings with a win.
Instead, Xhaka’s deflected shot means they are fourth after 10 games and already look well placed to avoid any relegation fears.
Sunderland have 18 points from their first 10 Premier League games this season (W5 D3 L2), the most by a newly promoted team since Hull City in 2008-09 (20).
Coach Regis Le Bris said: “It’s a good point. We didn’t start well. They were better than us for 25/30 minutes. We felt they were a good team and had a lot of threats, the ability to exploit our turnovers, and we weren’t consistent enough during this first part of the game to be competitive. But we changed in the latter part of the first half, and the second half was much better and we deserved to even score a second goal.
“Sometimes we start well and you don’t really know why. Sometimes we start like we did today and we don’t know why, but we can change the momentum, so we were still connected with our ideas, and this is the best way to get back into this game.”
