Sunderland striker Victor Anichebe proving his value, says Moyes

Eyebrows were raised when free agent Anichebe was added to the Black Cats squad after the transfer window closed.

Supporters wanted a bigger name before the deadline but that never materialised, despite attempts.

Anichebe, who had fitness concerns when he arrived, has proved his worth and is clearly enjoying himself at the Stadium of Light.

The 28-year-old’s impact has been notable; since he was introduced to the starting line-up Sunderland have won three of their four Premier League fixtures to climb within a point of the safety zone.

Anichebe may not have even been playing had injuries not taken their toll on the squad, but Moyes is delighted his former Everton striker is proving himself again after leaving West Brom.

Moyes said: “Quite often it happens in football that managers stumble across their best team, it’s not always by plan. Sometimes the plan and the design is not always the best.

“With us not getting a striker in the summer, Victor came in and I think people were thinking how well will he do, what can he do, is he going to come off the bench or play a few cup games, or be back up to Jermain Defoe?

“But Victor has gone and put himself right in the frame and is arguably playing as well as anybody in the Premier League as a forward player at the moment. That’s a big statement for the boy.

“Steven Pienaar is probably playing as well as any player. We would like to get more minutes out of him, more than 70 minutes. But the boys we have brought in like that have done really well and they were brought in to mainly cover the long-term injuries.”

Nigeria boss Gernot Rohr is looking to recall Anichebe to the international stage in the coming months, even though they have not qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations which will be a relief to Moyes.

The Sunderland manager has already been hit with the blow this week that forward Duncan Watmore will not play again this season – and he has admitted that it could be even longer before he returns.

Watmore damaged his knee in the latter stages of last Saturday’s defeat to Leicester City and Moyes said: “He’s desperate to get the swelling down. He’s been in trying to get the swelling down and sooner he gets the swelling down, they will operate on the knee.

“The message I got was because he’s damaged the cartilage in his knee as well, he’s damaged his lateral and his other one, so both his cartilages have been damaged. Both of them need to be repaired so that is a bigger situation. He will probably be longer than just the season.”

The injury situation has been hard for Sunderland to deal with and was a contributing factor to them failing to win any of their opening ten league games. Fabio Borini is nearing a return, though.

Moyes said: “Seb Larsson went to the Euros with an injury, Lee Cattermole has had an ongoing injury, we lost Borini when he took a free-kick at Southampton, we lost Duncan in the game to a knee, Paddy McNair to a knee, Lynden Gooch to an ankle injury.

“The only people we’ve really lost to muscles injuries are Jack Rodwell and Jan Kirchhoff. So there have been serious injuries here. We are not getting loads of groins or hamstrings.

“I’ve always said injuries are part of every club. Some will get them worse. We’ve had our fair share, especially at the start, to lose the senior players. We brought on two senior players last week and it helped because we had a better standard of player to bring on.

“You think of the games at the start, we had nothing to change the game. Now we have a few seniors back with more experience. We were having to play Donald Love, Paddy, Lynden before. But you can’t hide behind the excuse of injuries.”

Moyes is not expected to be handed any further cash in January to strengthen his squad, and he has also learned this week that Yann M’Vila no longer wants to join. Sunderland have since scrapped the three-and-a-half year deal that had been agreed with the Rubin Kazan midfielder.

Moyes said: “Yann said that he didn’t want to come, his choice. We took that into consideration and once we did, we decided it wasn’t the right thing for us. It might be that he’s maybe got something else out there that might interest him more than us.

“It’s disappointing to be missing out on a good footballer. But if a footballer doesn’t want to play then it makes it easy. We as a club want players who are totally committed to what we are trying to do and that is change things around a bit. We are a little disappointed it hasn’t happened but if a player doesn’t want to come then we can’t do anything about it.”