DAVID MOYES was left furious at referee Chris Kavanagh’s decision not to hand Sunderland an EFL Cup lifeline on Wednesday night.

His frustration, resulting in the Black Cats' manager being sent to the stands at St Mary’s.

Southampton clinched a place in the quarter-finals of the competition and were given a trip to Arsenal after Sofiane Boufal’s brilliant winner 24 minutes from time proved the difference.

But Sunderland, who had performed positively on the south coast without posing goalkeeper Alex McCarthy too many problems, had justified claims for a penalty when Victor Anichebe went to ground in the area under a challenge from Maya Yoshida.

Kavanagh decided not to point to the spot and Moyes jumped out of his technical area to remonstrate, while his players also questioned the decision on the field of play.

After the referee had a word with his fourth assistant, James Adcock, it was decided Moyes should be sent to the stands and he will now be charged by the Football Association for his conduct and could be banned from the touchline for Arsenal’s visit to the Stadium of Light this Saturday.

Moyes had no complaints with the dismissal but he was furious with the way it came about.

He said: “It’s a stonewaller. You can write that any way you like, stonewaller penalty kick. No questions. Inside the box. Yoshida goes across Victor and it was a definite penalty kick.

“At the moment our luck is out, but it will change because I actually think the performances have been getting better and those will lead to results.

"The last couple of performances have merited something, we should have got something at West Ham. We definitely did enough here to take it to extra-time.”

He added: “I was sent off for leaving my box and swearing. It was correct. The decision to send me off was correct. It was the fourth official, who chased me down the touchline.

"I felt like saying ‘just stay back’. But I swore at him which I shouldn’t have done and I deserved to get sent off.”

Moyes indicated he had not had further words with Kavanagh after the final whistle had been blown, but the Sunderland boss was clearly still seething in the media room when he was asked to discuss the penalty.

The defeat was his eighth since taking over from Sam Allardyce in the summer and Sunderland will head into this Saturday’s game with Arsenal knowing they must try to address the slide towards the Championship.

Boufal’s winner meant it was the sixth time this season Sunderland have lost by just a single goal. He said: “We have the ability to stay in touch in games, we want to improve our ability to play a bit better.

“We need to be hard to beat and be resilient. They showed that at times to be resilient last season. I want to try to win some games but I want us to stay hard to beat to try to pick up points.

“I thought the players played really well, it was a good steady team performance but it was a big disappointment and we had a big chance to get a penalty kick with a couple of minutes to go to take it to extra time and it doesn’t happen.

“We could have stopped him coming inside for the goal, but it was a top class goal.

“I’m just disappointed because we didn’t deserve to lose, disappointed we didn’t take it to extra time because I thought that was the least we deserved from the game. We were in the game, I thought we were in the game and had some really good chances.”

Sunderland were backed by 1,500 fans on the south coast and Moyes felt for them, while he also hinted Anichebe’s performance on his first start for the club could lead to more after providing a different option in attack.

He said: “I thought Victor did really well and was a handful all night, he gave us a different outlook. When we went a goal down I had to give him longer than 65 minutes, which was more than I wanted.

“In the future it might be a temptation to play him with Jermain Defoe but we don’t want to change too much to the midfield because they need to get the ball to the forwards too. You need to get the balance right.

“The fans deserve great credit, they are watching a team that isn’t winning, it gives you an idea of the strength of the football club that there were that many here.”