Saturday 1 October 2016 18:56, UK
David Moyes thinks Sunderland were worthy of the point they salvaged at home to West Brom thanks to a late Patrick van Aanholt goal.
The Black Cats are still waiting for their first league win of the season and looked on course for a crushing 1-0 home defeat after conceding, somewhat against the run of play, in the first half.
Injuries meant that options from the bench were thin on the ground for Moyes but Van Aanholt saved the day, looping a bouncing shot into the net after great work from Duncan Watmore.
Moyes said: "I don't think we would have deserved to lose the game, which we nearly did.
"We had done some good things, we produced a great move, and Jermain (Defoe) had a great chance to put us 1-0 up.
"West Brom played quite well at times and we had to defend better than we have done in the past.
"When they got the goal, they are the sort of team who don't concede many goals. They are very resolute and hard to beat, so it was a long job to try and get the goal back.
"I genuinely did not think we deserved to go in [at half-time] a goal down and sometimes the first goal in the Premier League is so important.
"We had to say to the players 'keep going' but we had so little to change things with today, regarding forward players or to make positive changes, so we had to change the system to see if we could get a goal and, thankfully, we managed."
Van Aanholt had been introduced as a 56th-minute replacement for the injured Jan Kirchhoff and lined up in midfield rather than his more accustomed left-back role.
Moyes said: "We had been training Pat further forward this week in a couple of sessions to see how it looked.
"But the one thing with Pat is he gets some goals - he scored the goal against Middlesbrough."
Moyes made five changes following last week's painful 3-2 loss at home to Crystal Palace, albeit many of them injury enforced.
"We had three injuries which we could not do anything about but we made a couple of changes at the back," he said.
"We want to see if we can find a better solution.
"You always pick what you think are the best players and the best team but, when the players aren't playing well, you have got to let them know that it is not good enough and give other players an opportunity - people like John O'Shea, who is very experienced and came in and did a great job for us today."
At this stage it looks like Sunderland are poised for what feels like an annual battle against the drop but Moyes is up for the fight and says he is at the club for the long haul.
"Whoever is at Sunderland knows it is going to be a long journey," he said. "Otherwise, you go back to a revolving door and I don't think that is the best thing you can do at any football club
"I think this one has had that revolving door for too long."
