MANAGER David Moyes has accepted the criticism from fans furious over Sunderland’s dreadful start to the Premier League season.

Sunderland are bottom of the table with only two points following their latest defeat at West Ham, which provoked an angry reaction on social media.

A section of Stadium of Light supporters want Sunderland to end Moyes’s brief reign – and he is not surprised by their reaction.

“My message to them would be to say I totally understand,” said Moyes, whose side travel to Southampton for an EFL Cup fourth round tie tomorrow night.

“Any manager is in trouble if you don’t win games, whether you’re at the top or at the bottom.

“I do think the majority of people understand the situation we are in, but I don’t take it for granted that I can get their support.

“I have to earn their support and, at the moment, I could understand if they didn’t see that because of our results. I can only tell them that we’re doing everything possible to get there.

“I’ll keep doing it until I’m told differently.”

Moyes expects to escape any punishment from the FA following an exchange with referee Bob Madley over West Ham’s late winner on Saturday.

Moyes said: “I still think the goal was offside and I had my say to the referee. If it had been given offside, no one would have complained about it.

“I don’t think there’s any story. If I approached him, then it’s probably because I was angry, but I just said ‘I hope you’ve got that decision right’.

“Were there a few words shouted? Yes. But remember, this is the guy who didn’t give the corner at Manchester City when they went up the park and scored in the first minute in the first game of the season.

“Actually, it was him who reminded me of that. I’d forgotten about it.

“It’s frustrating when you lose so late in a game, but I have watched it again and lot of things were improving.

“There were better signs and it could easily have been a hard-earned goalless draw but we didn’t get it.”

Meanwhile, Moyes has revealed he is not a fan of Twitter after an embarrassing blunder by striker Victor Anichebe, who demonstrated how players employ social media managers to organise their tweets.

A tweet went out under Anichebe’s name after the game saying: “Can you tweet something like...Unbelievable support yesterday and great effort by the lads! Hard result to take! But we go again!”

He quickly deleted it and has since said he sent the message to somebody else and asked them to send it out because he was busy.

Moyes said: “The first thing I would say is that he was bang on about the supporters.

“If his message was to put out about the players fighting really hard, getting close to it, I’d have to say he was right about that.”

But he added: “I don’t do Twitter. I actually think it’s not been a good thing for football managers.

“I don’t know what industries Twitter has helped or not helped, but I don’t think you would say that management is one it’s helped.”

n Former Everton striker Francis Jeffers has returned to the club as an academy coach.

Jeffers, 35, is working towards his UEFA A-Licence and will work as a youth coach with the Toffees’ academy strikers.

He said: “I’ll be working with all the forward-thinking players in the academy, trying to help them on their journey, which I know a bit about because I have been on it myself.

“I’m passionate about coaching and there is no better place to do that than at the club I love.

“You look at it now and teams play mainly with one striker, some play with none. Helping forwards be ready for that challenge is something I’m really passionate about because I believe the kids in the academy need more help as a striker.”

Jeffers played 82 times, scoring 22 goals, in two spells with Everton in a career that also took in Arsenal, Charlton, Blackburn, Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday and Motherwell.

He won one England cap, scoring in a 3-1 defeat to Australia in 2003.

n Reading captain Paul McShane says “the shackles are off” for his side as they put on hold their primary objective of winning promotion back into the Premier League to take on Arsenal in the EFL Cup tonight.

The Royals travel to the Emirates for their fourth-round tie boosted by Saturday’s 1-0 victory at Rotherham, a result that ended a four-game winless run and left them within a point of the Championship play-off spots.

McShane admits the league remains Reading’s priority this season but insists at the same time they will be doing all they can to upset the Gunners, saying “everything is possible”.