Van Aanholt Missing Due to Cardiology Tests – Moyes

Defoe was omitted from this evening’s EFL Cup match at QPR because of a calf problem, leaving the Black Cats without their top scorer, along with Fabio Borini, who is sidelined for a couple of months.

“We just lacked the experienced forward players tonight who maybe could have finished the game off earlier, but some of our play was quite good”.

“He’ll be a really good buy for us in time”.

“I believe he’s probably better as a more attacking midfielder and we need to try to find that spot for him”.

“Even against QPR he played alongside Jan Kirchhoff, but I think he’s better as an attacking midfielder”.

He said: “We want to get a bit of momentum going”. “The Football Association panel advised us really late that he should not play until further tests had taken place”.

In fact, their last victory came in the league cup in August, when they condemned Shrewsbury Town to a 1-0 defeat courtesy of a 83rd-minute strike by Adnan Januzaj.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink made eight changes to his QPR team but Moyes made six to the side that lost 1-0 to Tottenham at the weekend.

I read a bit on Kickoff.co.uk that picked out some interesting statistics ahead of tonight’s game.

“Time is the word in this game, isn’t it, and we don’t always get it”.

With that said, I’m going for an optimistic 3-1 Sunderland win, and with Duncan Watmore up front I’m backing him to score tonight and show why he’s being wasted as a wide-man. Let’s not forget we played with a young left-back and a very young right-back (Niko Hamalainen and Osman Kakay) and they were magnificent. Ensuring we have the right attitude tonight and picking a team strong enough to beat a fairly adequate Queens Park Rangers side is hugely important – failing to do so and going out of the competition with a whimper will only compound the misery we’ve suffered since the season began. I have never in my career been put in a situation like that ever, so we had that to deal with. “We had grit and we were nearly there”.