David Moyes not looking at relegation picture

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 14 December 2016

Sunderland manager David Moyes insists that he is solely focused on his own side rather than the fortunes of their relegation rivals.

Sunderland manager David Moyes has insisted that he is fully focused on his own side rather than the fortunes of their relegation rivals.

The Black Cats had won three of their previous four games before Saturday's 3-0 defeat at the hands of fellow strugglers Swansea City, which sent them back to the bottom of the table.

Sunderland remain just two points from safety, though, and Moyes is confident that the loss at Swansea will not set his side back in their battle to avoid the drop.

"I've not really looked, honestly. I'm only interested in how we do and I know we're obviously going to have to win games and I've got an idea of how many. But overall what other teams do, I can't do anything about. I would have liked to have seen us out of it [by winning at Swansea]. Don't get me wrong, if I had seen that we were out of it I'd have said 'great'. But if we're at the bottom, well, we've been there for most of it so it's not something new at the moment," he told reporters.

"It won't put us back,. We've got ourselves back in with a fighting chance again. A few weeks ago we weren't in it, so we'll brush ourselves down and get on with what's next. We've got a busy week. We're still in there. We won three out of four games, that was great. We know our limitations, we know what we've got and we know it's going to be a tough job to see it through. We've said that right from day one, we've not kidded anybody on.

"The club have been here many times. I said on Friday that we probably need to go on a good run maybe two or three times this season, winning a few games, drawing a couple. This time we've won three out of four and that was great for us. We have to do that to make sure we keep ourselves in the Premier League. "We weren't good enough [at Swansea], we didn't play well enough. But I thought the game changed on a very tight decision."

Sunderland host league leaders Chelsea at the Stadium of Light this evening.