Sunderland – Premier League Football – 18 September 2016

David Moyes has admitted that Sunderland found life “tough” at White Hart Lane as they fell to a 1-0 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur.

The England global striker left the stadium on crutches, wearing a protective boot.

“We will assess him tomorrow“. He twisted his ankle and felt pain.

“We need to improve”, he stressed. It’s hard to assess and give an opinion. “We need to wait”.

The north Londoners are yet to taste defeat in the Premier League this season having registered two wins and two draws from their opening four games while they eased to an impressive 4-0 victory at Stoke last weekend.

A longer lay-off could also mean the forward misses England’s World Cup qualifying fixtures against Malta on October 8 and Slovenia three days later.

The home side’s afternoon, however, was marred by injury concerns with Mousa Dembele and Eric Dier both taken off in the second half, before Kane was also forced to depart. “We can not concede the goal we did”, Pochettino said.

“With the right attitude you need to show more than we showed in the first half”, said the France global. That’s very important, and then we can speak about a tactical plan for the game.

“He can give to the team better quality than another player”.

They managed 31 attempts on goal and had been the dominant force, even before Adnan Januzaj was sent off for a second yellow card late on.

The deadlock was finally broken just before the hour through Kane, who showed a poacher’s instinct to slot home after Papy Djilobodji totally missed his clearance after Alli knocked down Walker’s cross.

“It was a good result”, Pochettino said.

The second half started in a similar fashion to the first, with Spurs dominating possession but Sunderland doggedly hanging in there.

The iconic Wembley arch was lit up in Tottenham’s blue and white, but that was the extent of the home comforts for Mauricio Pochettino’s side as it paid the price for a sloppy first-half display.

However, Spurs’ excellent form in league played failed to translate onto the Champions League stage with Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Monaco in front of more than 80,000 at Wembley Stadium.

“In terms of how we prepared mentally we tried to think back to how we were emotionally when we played Arsenal at The Emirates”. Son and Sissoko lit up the Sunderland box only minutes later with two shots that were hurtling goalbound, but the visitors threw bodies in the way to ensure they were still hanging on to the stalemate.

“But it’s true from the beginning after the Olympic Games his idea was to leave to go to Germany”.

The Spurs players were lining up to shoot at the other end, Cattermole with a brilliant block to deny Sissoko before the follow-up was drilled wide.

To watch a preview of the Tottenham Hotspur vs. Sunderland English Premier League showdown, courtesy of NBC Sports, check out the video below.

There was a late change, with Patrick van Aanholt being replaced by Jason Denayer after the warm-up, with Donald Love added to the bench.

I can’t repeat everything I said after the game. “People can get injured in the warm-up”.

“That was hard. We have time to win games”.