David Moyes on playing so many young players during Sunderland injury crisis

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Sunderland went down to another defeat at the weekend, this time at the hands of Stoke.

Sunderland manager David Moyes

Sunderland manager David Moyes has said the Black Cats are currently missing their more experienced players with their current injury woes, suggesting that he is using the younger players in his squad a little more than he would’ve liked, the Sunderland Echo reports.

Their worrying form continued at the weekend as they were beaten 2-0 by Stoke City at the Bet365 Stadium which leaves them bottom of the Premier League with just two points – four points adrift of safety after just eight games.

Stoke City’s Xherdan Shaqiri in action with Sunderland’s Javi Manquillo

Moyes is quoted in the Sunderland Echo, saying: “You need players with experience and those who’ve been there and done it a little more often, because I think they can see you through and understand better the nature of where you are.

“The choice was to get young players in the hope that with them playing they’ll eventually get better and go on to make really good players.

“But you try not to use them all in the one hit if you can help it – I think we are just missing a little more experience.”

Sunderland are without the likes of Jan Kirchhoff, Lee Cattermole, Vito Mannone, Fabio Borini and Sebastian Larsson, among others. All of those mentioned are players with significant experienced at a high level.

Crystal Palace’s Jason Puncheon in action with Sunderland’s Lee Cattermole

Moyes went on to list players such as Jordan Pickford, Duncan Watmore, Javier Manquillo, Didier N’Dong and Paddy McNair as younger players – but it must be noted that all of those players are either beginning to establish themselves in the side or have had experience of the Premier League for others club. The exception is N’Dong who is the club’s record signing, but will inevitably need time to adapt.

One has to have a degree of sympathy for Moyes given the length of the injury list he has but he has several players there who are more than capable, and should be performing better as a unit than they have in the early stages of this season.

Of course, no-one wants to throw lots of younger players into the side all at once, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a threat, or much improvement in the side from game to game.

Sunderland manager David Moyes