Sunderland manager David Moyes, who spent 11 years at Everton, acknowledged his side gave away soft goals.
Advertisement
The Belgium global scored all his side’s goals inside 11 second-half minutes as the Toffees ran riot at the Stadium of Light following a frustrating opening 45 minutes to claim a 3-0 victory.
– This is the sixth consecutive Premier League season that Sunderland have failed to win any of their opening four games in that campaign.
“In the second half, there was only one team in it”, said McCoist.
And Koeman, whose decision to take off the ineffective Ross Barkley for Gerard Deulofeu paid dividends when the Spaniard helped set up the first goal, admitted that he made his feelings about the first 45 minutes quite clear to his players.
Lukaku scored twice from free headers in a dismal second-half defensive showing from Sunderland. “He’s a key player, a great signing for us”.
“We just didn’t defend crosses well enough – whether it be stopping them, heading them or picking up in the box”.
“Romelu is a fantastic striker and sometimes it’s hard when you’ve gone a long time not scoring for your club and everyone’s talking about that”.
“Second half we were better”, added the Belgian forward.
“I could have had five or six but I’m happy with three”. I wanted a result tonight because you can say, ‘they’ve done okay when you look back at the games’.
“But we’re training every day with them, so we’re trying to explain to them how to adapt, how to play, and they’re taking it very well”.
The Belgian frontman, though, might have done better than heading it straight at young Sunderland goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, the England Under-21 global still reacting brilliantly to tip the thunderbolt header over the bar.
The Belgium worldwide twice headed in unmarked from point-blank range before slotting in a third on the break after Kevin Mirallas split the home defence with a simple first-time pass. Koeman made the change right at the start of the second half to put him out on the left hand side, and from there I thought he was absolutely terrific.
“We’re in a good position in the league and we have to keep going”.
Advertisement
“That reaction came and, look, I know my players, I know the level that they can show against Sunderland and that was the level in the second half and not the first half”.
