Moyes: Why I chose not to make substitutions

David Moyes defended his decision not to make a single substitution in Sunderland’s 3-1 defeat to Stoke City.

It seemed strange to see a team sliding to defeat without the manager making some attempt to spark his side as the game wore on.

But he said he did not have anyone on the bench better than the three forward players already on the field – Jermain Defoe, Fabio Borini and Adnan Januzaj.

Defoe scored the only home goal five minutes before half-time, but it was his only shot of the match which resulted in the Black Cats dropping to second-bottom spot in the Premier League.

In defence of Moyes, two of his subs were full-backs, Billy Jones and Javier Manquillo, and another was keeper Mika.

His other four subs were U23 players – George Honeyman, Elliot Embleton, Josh Maja, Joel Asoro. In fact, the latter three are teenagers, with Honeyman 22.

“We were trying to score goals and I didn’t really feel I had the players on the bench any more capable than Fabio Borini, Jermain Defoe or Adnan Januzaj,” said Moyes.

“We don’t really have anything to change it around – I felt the best attacking players were already on the pitch.”

Moyes reiterated his hope that Sunderland can do some transfer business in the second half of the January transfer window.

Not only is the injury list sizeable, three players are away at the Africa Cup of Nations – Wahbi Khazri, Lamine Kone and Didier Ndong.

“I think we’d want to add to our squad, our numbers are down,” said Moyes. “We’ll get players back from injury and the Africa Cup of Nations but at this moment we are very short.”

Sunderland never recovered from an abysmal first 35 minutes when Stoke racked up a 3-0 lead.

“You are going to make mistakes in football games, everyone makes mistakes,” said Moyes. “But the three we made we were severely punished.

“May be we have made mistakes in other games and not been punished.”

Sunderland are back in action tomorrow, with the FA Cup third round replay against a Burnley side who maintained their fine home form by beating Southampton, with Joey Barton scoring.