Goalscorer Craig Gardner felt Sunderland's second-half performance merited all three points, never mind one.

'We were saying in there we are just starting too slow and before we know it, we are two goals down,' he said.

'I scored before the second half and then we came out and had another one cleared off the line, I hit the post, we could have won 5-2 on any other day but we can't keep standing here after games saying these things. We have to just do them.

'We can do it and if we play like that second-half from the start we will win games comfortably. That is what we have to take into next week because Chelsea is going to be a tough game.

'Second half, we deserved to win the game. End of. We were poor in the first half but on the second-half we deserved to win the game and there were signs at Everton and here that we are starting to find it slowly – but we have to find it quickly and really push on.'