Sunderland vs Arsenal: David Moyes says he is 'taking his poison' in bid to get Black Cats off the ground

Sunderland's short-term problems in failing to win a match this season are a symbol of their long-term issues having failed to reach 40 points in the past four seasons

David Moyes knows there is pressure to turn around Sunderland's woeful form this season (Getty)

David Moyes begins by talking about “taking the positives”; he ends by talking about “taking the poison”. In between there is a detour into Nissan and a joke about jobs.

These are curious times on Wearside: it’s not every Friday that the Prime Minister writes an exclusive column in the Sunderland Echo. Theresa May somehow failed to mention football. She was focusing on success.

All the while, Moyes smiles. His Sunderland team, without a Premier League win since May 11th and bottom of the division, already look Championship-bound and host Arsenal on Saturday lunchtime; but Moyes, or part of him, views this as almost predictable pain, something that’s been coming.

He says he is under no internal pressure – “sometimes the noise outside can become bigger than the noise inside” – and wonders aloud as to how many league games Sunderland have won over the past four seasons. The answer, including this season, is 35 from 161 – just over 20%.

It means that in four of five games over four and-a-bit seasons Sunderland fans have not seen their team win; it is expected there will be 45,000 at the Stadium of Light for Arsenal.

Remarkably Sunderland have remained in the Premier League, but they have not reached 40 points since 2012. When Moyes is asked about short-term solutions to long-terms problems, he replies: “I think that whoever was going to make this a better fix generally was going to - and I use the word - take a lot of poison til you get to the other side.

“I’m having to take my poison just now. I hope by the end it goes away. Unless we were going to come in with big, big money and say ‘change this around, fix it’ . . . but then you’d have to see if you could get that level of player to come here.

“We have a level of player to put in here, then we’ll have to put on another level of bricks, then another level. Sometimes this isn’t what people want to hear.”

Many of them are fans who were elated in May when Sunderland stayed up under Sam Allardyce, and neighbours Newcastle went down.

But Allardyce has gone, so too Younes Kaboul and DeAndre Yedlin – half the back four – and Yann M’Vila in midfield. Add injuries to Lee Cattermole, Jan Kirchhoff and Fabio Borini and Sunderland fans see subsidence. More than that, they have lost optimism.

And Moyes has to do without half of Allardyce’s team, which lost only one of its last eleven games last season. Sunderland’s reshaped XI have won none of nine. They are on the brink of equalling Manchester City’s dire start in 1995-96 under Alan Ball.

Yet Moyes sees signs of progress and notes that five of Sunderland’s seven league defeats so far have been by a single goal. He says he is “certainly not considering the Championship”, nor losing against Arsenal. In fact, the opposite.

“I would hate to think that anyone was expecting to lose,” Moyes adds. “I expect to win [against Arsenal]. I have actually said so in my programme notes.

“I don’t care who I play, I expect to win, and that’s my message to the team in every game - by hook or by crook.”


 Moyes has seen his side fail to win all nine league games this season 
 (Getty)

Moyes has said a few times at Sunderland that he is “a winner”. As the losses mount up and there are incidents such as the plane home from Southampton in midweek being fog-bound, a different mood gathers and it sounds a bold claim.

Then there’s the statistic that Jack Rodwell has not won one of the 32 league games he has started since signing for £10m from City in 2014.

It brings questions about a losing culture, which Moyes accepts can happen. “I think you’ve got to get out of it, get out of the feeling.”


 The looming presence of former manager Sam Allardyce does not help Moyes's cause (Getty)
 (Getty Images)

Easier said than done of course. But Moyes and Sunderland’s new chief executive Martin Bain are trying.

They are behind next week’s visit to Nissan’s shop floor as part of the club’s attempt to “engage”. How they would love to arrive at this week’s big industrial winners with Sunderland having at long last re-experienced that same feeling on a football pitch.