Moyes praises Southampton’s development

Moyes, the former Everton and Manchester United boss, is yet to register a point with his new Black Cats side, but has a favourable personal record against Saints in which he has not lost to them in 14 years.

The Sunderland manager says he looks at Southampton though as a model club in recent times.

“I think they’re a club which is certainly on the climb because of the way they’ve done their business,” he told reporters ahead of this weekend’s game.

“I think Southampton are a club that has built progressively, through their academy mainly, but on that journey they’ve had to sell some of their players to finance the next stage of their development.

“They’re run very well and I think they’re improving all the time, so you have to give them credit for the way they’ve gone about their work in the last seven or eight years.”

Coupled with a winless start, Moyes’s new side has mounting injury problems ahead of their trip south on Saturday which he feels makes for a tougher assignment than normal.

“I can understand the difficulties that everyone else has had as well as the frustrations that the supporters have got, but as I’ve said many times, I just cannot turn this around right away,” he explained.

“We’re trying to give the supporters a team that they can do better than before, if not then we’ve got to try and do at least as well as before. We’ll do everything we can to try and get better but it can’t just be flipped around.

“I want the challenge and the excitement though,” he added. “I’ve got to tell you that this is a real rollercoaster here at the moment and I’ve only just started.

“My idea would be to try and build a young up and coming team, but we can’t just be young at the moment as we need senior players to help them get to the next level. Ideally we’d have a young team with as many British players in it as possible which would help me. I’ve got to do it one bit at time and the first thing is to try and get a win at Southampton.”