Lens focuses sharply on disgrace at Sunderland
DAVID MOYES branded one of his wantaway players a ‘disgrace’ this week.
Following this shameful surrender, perhaps he’ll see fit to use that same description for a few more.
Jeremain Lens — on loan at Fenerbahce — was the subject of the manager’s ire after the Dutch forward said he hoped his parent club were relegated this season.
On this evidence, Lens will get his wish.
Moyes, though, will have realised inside 34 minutes in which Stoke scored three times that his real problems are far closer to home.
Sunderland’s defending was, well, indefensible.
Keeper Vito Mannone was so bad there was an argument to say the injured Jordan Pickford might have fared better on one leg.
Right-back Donald Love was another who endured a torrid time, while central defender Papy Djilobodji appeared to stop playing at one point in the first half. Some will say did he start? Moyes — whose side are now joint bottom — insisted: ‘It was just three p poor mistakes which didn’t dn’t allow us to get going. The damage was done by then. We got severely punished.’
Sunderland did not make a single substitution for the first time since e 2001 and Moyes added: dded: ‘I didn’t feel I had players on the bench any more capable than Fabio Borini, Adnan Januzaj and Jermain Defoe. We are pretty short.’
The home supporters have not turned on the Scot.
Instead, they targeted the owner. ‘Are you watching, Ellis Short?’ was the cry after Peter Crouch added to Marko Arnautovic’s double.
If Short had witnessed that first-half collapse, he may well have deemed their survival chances a lost cause and withdrawn what little cash he has afforded Moyes this month. For it will take more than a couple of new faces to right the wrongs of a squad who have cheated relegation for five years.
For Stoke, they are up to ninth, and boss Mark Hughes said: ‘The first 35 minutes was the best we’ve played away from home for seasons. The way we started, it was always going to be difficult for them. But clearly they have problems.’ T The first was a gi gift. Sunderland’s J Jason Denayer played his most accurate pass of the afternoon when he found Sto Stoke’s Xherdan Shaq Shaqiri’s unmarked. The S Swiss playmaker took one touch before picking out the run of Arnautovic, peeling away all too easily from Love.
The Austrian’s initial shot was saved but, with the keeper exposed on the floor, he lashed home the rebound.
Stoke’s second was, in fairness, a brilliant team goal, but Sunderland’s resistance was non-existent.
Arnautovic swapped passes with Shaqiri and Crouch before bursting clear and again hammering home. The Italian keeper did his best to hand Stoke a third when he fumbled a weak Shaqiri shot against the post.
It smacked of a player bereft of confidence and that showed when Crouch headed the third, beating Mannone to Charlie Adam’s high cross after the keeper had hesitated in coming out.
Mannone wasn’t the only player in red and white wishing they were someone else.
Love was struggling too, and his concentration would hardly have been aided by the sight of fellow rightbacks Javier Manquillo and Billy Jones warming up on the touchline.
The half-time boos would have been louder had Defoe not pulled one back five minutes before the interval when he broke free and tucked his 12th of the season inside the far post.
By then, though, half the crowd had disappeared.
Sunderland were better in the second half.
They could not have been any worse.
Fabio Borini tested Lee Grant with a low blast before Jack Rodwell scuffed wide after finding himself one-onone just six yards out.
But that was that, a half-hearted response to a heartless first half. Some might even call it a disgrace.