Moyes has been handed a tough start to the new season, but he will be looking for his team to put in a strong performance to get the club off to a good start, something they have failed to do in previous seasons.
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But Guardiola, who left England keeper Joe Hart out of his starting XI, saw his new side concede to Jermain Defoe.
Guardiola admitted ahead of the Sunderland game that he needs to trim his first-team squad but he insists that all his players could still have a future at the Etihad. “I’m just disappointed”, he said. That’s why I am so pleased – because we have to build something from that to be a team to defend.
“We should have been a bit more aggressive, but these kind of things have to happen to know how to get better in the next game”.
He reportedly tabled a transfer request earlier this week, but Moyes said that Kone had no knowledge of a statement that had been attributed to him by British media.
The City boss has given no indication that he is unhappy with Hart’s talents, application or mentality, but as feared when he first took the job, the England worldwide doesn’t have the ability to play out from the back that Guardiola places a great importance on. “They are all professionals and they will fight for their place, no doubt about that”.
“They played better, we tried to do our best”, the Italian told Sky Sports.
He said: “There wasn’t much he could do about it”.
“In the second half until the goal from Defoe, we played really, really well”. The boy was great, he was great today, he was great yesterday.
But, with champions Leicester City losing to Hull City and Tottenham being held by Everton, Guardiola was happy enough to take an unconvincing win. “So we’ve not hidden everything”.
Sunderland face local rivals Middlesbrough next weekend with Moyes expecting a repeat of Saturday’s heroics all over again in what is considered a derby for the North-East sides. “I saw him many times playing for Liverpool and all my staff want to help him to see the real Sterling”. We gave a couple of lads their debut today and they did a great job.
“I’ve said to the players that they have to play like that in every game”.
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Although Moyes may have lost his first match as Sunderland boss he was also happy with the game and how relentlessly Sunderland coped with City’s attacks; speaking with the club’s official website he said: “We can take positives from the performance because we did an very bad lot of good things today”. “I don’t want to pat them on the back for losing, but a pat on the back would come from the way they stuck at their job, kept going and coming very close to getting a result”.
