Having matched the visitors during the first half at the Stadium of Light, Sunderland collapsed to a third defeat in four league games thanks to a hat-trick from Romelu Lukaku in the space of 11 second-half minutes.
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Referees aren’t always appreciated by supporters for things they do get right but Sunderland fans gave Mike Jones a quick round of applause when he showed some common sense in not booking Jan Kirchhoff after he’d wiped out Gareth Barry in an honest attempt to win the ball.
Everton striker Romelu Lukaku says he must adopt a “serial killer” instinct in the final third to build on his hat-trick against Sunderland.
Everton boss Ronald Koeman replaced Barkley with Gerard Deulofeu at the break and the newcomer made an instant impact with a surging run which eventually led to Leighton Baines picking out Bolasie, who cut inside from the left to force a diving save from Pickford. We’ll be 13-14th if we play like in the first half. That is realistic. We showed that second half.
“I think we could have done better, especially in the first half”, he told Sky Sports.
“I think it was all about fitness levels”. But in the Premier League you have to be focused until the end and I got got good service from Yannick [Bolasie] and Kevin [Mirallas] at the end and managed to finish the chances. We had good defending, but the midfield lost too many balls. We just weren’t in the right defensive positions, which is something we work on regularly.
Moyes for his part said the new players he had brought in would take time to settle but that wasn’t a good enough excuse for their performance.
“We had good defending, which wasn’t the problem, the problem was when we had the ball”.
“I know my players, that was the level of the second half, not the level of the first half”.
“But that’s no excuse – when you’re in the big league, you’ve got to step up to it”.
Koeman went on to back his players to sustain a fight for the European spots this season – provided that they do not repeat Monday’s first-half showing.
The manager said: “He’s a fantastic striker and of course sometimes it’s hard”.
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Everton striker Romelu Lukaku is reportedly miffed with his club after they opted not to pay for him to fly back from worldwide duty with Belgium on a private jet.
