David Moyes keen to keep Lamine Koné but rues Sunderland budget restraints

“I’ve told people that it was always going to be hard”, added the Scot, whose side play Shrewsbury in the EFL Cup on Wednesday (19:45 BST).

Patrick van Aanholt halved the deficit for the Black Cats on 71 minutes, but Middlesbrough held on for the three points.

Sunderland manager David Moyes has said he is not being defeatist by saying the club face another Premier League relegation fight after just two games of the season.

So far, the Black Cats have brought in defender Papy Djilobodji from Chelsea, Manchester United trio Adnan Januzaj (on loan), Donald Love and Paddy McNair and signed Moyes’ former Everton midfielder Steven Pienaar as a free agent.

“I could have said “I hope we won’t get relegated”. I think there was an very bad lot of good things to talk about.

With injuries ravaging David Moyes’s already threadbare squad, the Scot had little option but to field several youngsters and a patched-up defence.

Gooch for me was a stand-out performer, although that doesn’t really say much about the rest of the players. “That’s where they’ve been every other year for the last four years, so why would it suddenly change?” I’ve come in late on, it’s never going to be easy. The 2010-11 campaign was the last time they did not change managers during the season.

To be fair to the players that played on Sunday, they started relatively well but once Middlesbrough went ahead through a fantastic strike we looked out of ideas and couldn’t get back into the game.

Sunderland goalkeeper Vito Mannone was on his way to hospital on Tuesday afternoon amid fears he may have suffered an arm fracture. “I’ve had that offer for a while now and I could have invested that money two weeks ago”.

‘The quality of the players that Sunderland can get at the moment are probably not what I’ve been buying in the last six years, or what I’ve had in the Premier League – not anywhere close to it.