Rovers boss Moore gives blunt assessment after his side's defeat
Doncaster Rovers boss Darren Moore lamented 'basically, elementary mistakes' as Sunderland raced into a 3-0 lead at the Stadium of Light on Saturday afternoon.
Moore's side then missed two second-half penalties as the Black Cats secured a 4-1 win.
The result cut the gap between the two in the League One table to four points, though Doncaster stll have two games in hand.
Moore said he was pleased with some of his side's improvements in the second half, but said the opening 45 from his team was 'simply not good enough'.
“I can’t think of any others [defeat] as disappointing since we’ve been building,” Moore said.
“But we win games as a team and we lose games as a team so we take it on the chin.
“The only way we do it and get back on track is by working.
"And for me, Monday cannot come soon enough.
"From our point of view it was not good enough.
“We started poorly, got back into the game but then conceded another poor goal.
“We had two penalties against us the other week that Ellery [Balcombe] saved and we had two saved today.
“That was our opportunity to get back in the game despite the first half showing.
"To start the game like that just wasn’t good enough.
"To concede four free headers in the box tells the story," he added.
“It’s back to the drawing board for us on Monday.
"In the second half we had them pinned back in and it was attack v defence at times.
"But they could sit back because they had the lead,” he added.
“If we had scored the penalties it might have been a different game.
“The second half was more like it, but the damage was done in the first half.
“They were basic, elementary mistakes.
“We found the spaces.
!I always felt we would come here and score so it was about keeping the back door shut.
"It’s about putting in the performance for the full 90minutes.”
Doncaster have another crucial game in the promotion race on Wednesday, when they welcome Accrington Stanley.
Moore's side then face Hull City next Saturday.
American billionaires who attempted to buy Sunderland in 2019 were initially interested in purchasing bitter rivals Newcastle United, it has been claimed.
A trio of investors – Robert Platek, John Phelan and Glenn Fuhrmann – held discussions with the Black Cats over purchasing the club in 2019, and even attended games on Wearside while negotiations continued.
The group all worked together at MSD Capital, but the deal for Sunderland was to be a private investment rather than one conducted through the firm.
Ultimately, a takeover could not be agreed and the trio – by then known as FPP Sunderland – loaned around £9million to owner Stewart Donald’s holding company, Madrox Partners.
Since then, MSD Capital
themselves have begun to have a presence in the game and have agreed loan arrangements with Premier League side Southampton and second tier outfit Derby County.
Platek, meanwhile, is on track to purchase Spezia in Italy’s top flight having previously bought Danish and Portuguese clubs.
But a report in the Financial Times suggests that it wasn’t Sunderland who were first viewed by the trio as a potential club to purchase – but instead it was Newcastle United.
The report claims that Platek was spearheading MSD’s push into English football and that he held talks with Mike Ashley over a deal to purchase the Magpies prior to any interest in Sunderland.
Only once it became apparentthatadealtopurchase Newcastle wouldn’t happen were MSD approached with the opportunity of purchasing Sunderland, the report claims.
Speaking last year about the American interest in Sunderland, Donald said: “I think if they were going to buy it, they would have bought it already.
"They invested the money so that we could…we sold them our vision of what we wanted to do.
"They invested their money on the basis that we would be there to oversee it. Their view is that they’re 3,000 miles away and they invest in management teams, so their investment was in me. So if I’m not there it’s unlikely, I think, that they’ll want to take it on.”