DAVID MOYES claimed Patrick van Aanholt was a last-minute withdrawal from Sunderland’s 1-0 defeat to Tottenham because of “medical reasons” – but mystery continues to shroud the precise explanation for the Dutchman’s non-appearance at White Hart Lane.
Advertisement
Premier League clubs have to declare their line-ups 75 minutes before kick-off and can only make changes due to injury or illness verified by a doctor.
Moyes reacted furiously when quizzed about the situation by a Sky Sports reporter post match and then would not answer follow-up questions in the press conference.
After the match, in which Moyes saw his Sunderland side slump to their fourth defeat in five games, he turned his anger on Sky TV.
Sunderland sit 19th in the table and are still without a win in the league under Moyes.
“I’ve given a stock answer: for medical reasons, we chose to withdraw him from the game”. “If you don’t mind, I won’t follow up on that”.
“I’d like to be straight”.
“It’s hard [to make a late change] It meant we had to change”. I thought Javi Manquillo went over to the left and did okay, and he played for Marseille in that position a lot last season.
Moyes added: “I think we got improvements [from the Everton match], as much as we kept in it but I’m still trying to see better play with the ball, I’m trying to see us being more aggressive when we have it”. We are having to be resilient, hang in games and look to get things. “It was very late on, I got word of something very late obviously, and because of that, that affected the decision”.
Advertisement
Denayer operated at right back against Spurs and was given a torrid afternoon by Son Heung-min, but judging by what happened in the warm-up, it seemed that neither the Belgian nor Van Aanholt knew much about the switch. “This is a great club, with great support, we need to give them something to shout about”.
