David Moyes pleased with Sunderland's battling point against Liverpool
Monday 2 January 2017 19:42, UK
David Moyes praised his Sunderland players' effort as they twice fought back from a goal down to take a point off title-chasing Liverpool.
Having endured a dismal festive period, which ended with heavy defeats to Manchester United and Burnley, the Wearsiders dug deep to start the new year positively.
Two Jermain Defoe penalties cancelled out strikes from Daniel Sturridge and Sadio Mane as the Blacks Cats moved to within one point of safety.
"I am proud because it was a really tough game and we've had a difficult Christmas period and this looked as difficult as any of them," Moyes told Sky Sports.
"The players did really well, we matched their energy, competed with them as often as we could with what we had available so I'm really pleased."
Asked to comment on his threadbare squad's resilience, Moyes added: "That's part of playing in a team, sometimes you have to play out of position or do another job.
"We had a good team out who played well - we worked hard to keep with Liverpool so to come from behind twice is a great credit to the players.
"If you said before 'would you take a point?' I would have said 'yes'. Our record at home recently has been very good, we've won a few games and that's why it was important we didn't lose today, to keep that going a little bit.
"We need to build on it, we'll need to pick up draws along the way but ultimately the wins are important. It would have been tough to get three points.
"We're beginning to play a bit better (at home), we're beginning to get the crowd realising we're getting better as we go along.
"The crowd picked up on the players' energy today, we didn't show it in our last game but they showed it today.
"We needed it because we were playing against a very energetic Liverpool side but we deserved our point, we really did."
Referee Anthony Taylor penalised Ragnar Klavan's challenge on Didier Ndong in the first period and Mane's handball in the second to hand the host's two routes back into the game.
There were big calls for a third penalty when the ball appeared to strike Emre Can's arm on 58 minutes.
"It definitely hits the boy's arm," Moyes added. "Do you think the boy's arm should be there? It probably should be because I don't know where else it goes.
"We got a penalty given against us at Swansea a few weeks ago that I didn't think was a penalty.
"But the ones that were given were definitely penalties, and there could have been a third one."
Moyes singled out Defoe as he held his nerve from the spot on two occasions to notch his 10th and 11th Premier League goals of the season.
He said: "You always need a penalty kick taker who scores goals because you get a few a season and when you get them they are important.
"Since I've been here Jermain has taken the kicks and scored them as well. We worked hard to get into the situations and stuck at it and great credit to the players for that."
