Sunderland boss David Moyes is happy with the point against West Brom
Sunday 2 October 2016 13:36, UK
Sunderland manager David Moyes was delighted with the spirit his players produced during the 1-1 draw with West Brom.
Despite going into the match at the Stadium of Light with several injuries, Sunderland earned just their second Premier League point of the campaign.
The home side required an 83rd-minute equaliser from substitute Patrick van Aanholt to deny Albion victory, but Moyes was satisfied with the display.
Moyes said: "We are lacking a bit of quality at the minute in certain areas, but the players tried to make up for it with their endeavour and their courage to try to play at times where we weren't that good at it.
"But they showed a bit of courage to keep taking the ball because you have got to have a big set of you-know-whats sometimes to take the ball when you are not playing that well."
Sunderland were aided in no small part by the return of veteran defender John O'Shea, whose organisational skills helped prevent West Brom from adding to Nacer Chadli's goal 10 minutes before the break.
Moyes was delighted with the Republic of Ireland international's contribution, but is well aware he is not a long-term solution as he approaches the end of his career.
"We'd love John to be 24 and just coming up - and what a good player he was when he was 24. But as we know, he's now 34, so we know there's another stage," Moyes said.
Following a poor start to the season, O'Shea, who is in fact 35, was also satisfied to earn a share of the spoils under the circumstances.
O'Shea said: "Look, we want to be beating West Brom at home, but we had stages where we were pushing, we were leaving ourselves a little bit open too, but I thought we deserved to get back into the game.
"We did and could have gone on to win it, but we are happy with the point because we could have lost it too."
