Sunderland vs Arsenal match report: Brutal Gunners pile pressure on David Moyes as Olivier Giroud returns in style

Sunderland 1 Arsenal 4: Giroud comes off the substitutes' bench to spark Arsenal into life to pile the misery on David Moyes

Olivier Giroud celebrates scoring his second goal for Arsenal against Sunderland (Getty)

David Moyes spoke of ‘having to take my poison’ as his seemingly-doomed Sunderland team prepared to welcome Arsenal to the Stadium of Light, but Alexis Sanchez and Olivier Giroud may just have administered a killer dose for the beleaguered Scot.

As Arsenal romped to the top of the Premier League with a 4-1 victory on Wearside, Sunderland’s angry supporters chanted, ‘We’re f****** shit’ with Moyes’s team equalling Manchester City’s record, set in 1995-96, of the worst start to a Premier League season after ten games.

Alan Ball’s City were relegated at the end of that campaign and, with only two points on the board so far, it will require some turnaround by Moyes – if he survives – to keep Sunderland in the top flight.

Sunderland owner Ellis Short has rarely displayed patience with failing managers, with Steve Bruce in 2010-11 the last one to see out a full season in charge of the club.

So the sands of time will already be running out for Moyes, whose career has been in a tailspin since leaving Everton for Manchester United in the summer of 2013.

No such problems for Arsene Wenger, however, whose team extended their fine form to climb to the top of the table ahead of the 3pm kick-offs.

Arsenal took their time to kill Sunderland off, allowing Jermain Defoe to cancel out Sanchez’s opener from the penalty spot midway through the second-half, but once Giroud scored their second, it was a procession to victory.

Moyes has rarely looked comfortable in the Sunderland manager’s seat since succeeding Sam Allardyce in late-July and the prospect of facing Wenger’s team is unlikely to have lifted his mood.

David Moyes's Sunderland remain winless this season in the Premier League (Getty)

Ever since claiming, after the second game of the season, that Sunderland would have to prepare for a relegation battle, morale has drained away from a squad which was dragged to survival by Allardyce last spring.

Moyes was hardly outdoing Nostradamus with his prediction of a campaign of struggle, but it has perhaps become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with his comments giving the players the ready-made excuse that even their manager believed they were hopeless.

Seven games on, Sunderland faced Arsenal anchored to the foot of the Premier League with only two points to show for their efforts. Arsenal, in contrast, arrived on Wearside on a run of 13 games without defeat stretching back to the opening day of the season.

So it was always going to be a difficult afternoon for Sunderland – a challenge made even tougher by their delayed return from Wednesday’s EFL Cup defeat at Southampton as a result of fog forcing them to stay overnight on the south coast rather than fly straight back to the north-east.

Everything that can go wrong appears to be doing exactly that for Moyes and his team and the bad luck continued with captain John O’Shea limping out of the game before half-time with an apparent hamstring injury.

But by that stage, the home side were already a goal down – the only surprise was that Arsenal had failed to score more.

Wenger’s team were already knocking hard on the door before Sanchez scored his stunning opener on 19 minutes.

Mesut Özil should have scored on 13 minutes when, after being fed by the Chilean’s sublime pass into the penalty area, he wastefully side-footed the ball into the arms of goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Sanchez was the creator again seconds later with a defence-splitting pass which set Francis Coquelin free.

Had it been the other way around, Pickford would surely have been picking the ball out of the net, but Coquelin is no finisher and he dithered in possession long enough for Lamine Kone to race back and steal the ball.

Sunderland were shipping water, though, and they buckled on 18 minutes when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain crossed from the right to Sanchez, who dashed in front of Kone to head past Pickford from six yards.

It was a wonderful header from the smallest man on the pitch, but the build-up was also eye-catching, with the former Barcelona forward finishing off a 22-pass move for the goal.

What now for Sunderland? They lacked the creativity and belief to haul themselves level and Jermain Defoe cut an isolated, and frustrated, figure up-front as the likes of Wahbi Khazri and Duncan Watmore failed time and again to deliver the ball to him.

But Arsenal continued to press for a second, with Alex Iwobi and Oxalde-Chamberlain going close before Özil missed another clear chance on 38 minutes.

This was the ‘away-day’ Özil, however – the player who lacks the extra edge he displays at the Emirates – and when he was teed-up by Oxalde-Chamberlain’s 50 yard pass, he attempted a lazy lob over Pickford which the goalkeeper dealt with easily.

Arsenal continued to waste chances early in the second-half, with Oxlade-Chamberlain scuffing wide from six yards before Sanchez was denied a penalty after being hauled down by Kone.

When referee Martin Atkinson awarded Sunderland a spot-kick two minutes later, following Petr Cech’s reckless challenge on Watmore, it could have been a crucial turning point, particularly when Defoe took advantage to equalise.

Petr Cech conceded a penalty after he fouled Duncan Watmore (Getty)

But Sunderland were level for just six minutes, with Giroud volleying in a Kieran Gibbs cross with his first touch on 71 minutes.

Five minutes later, Giroud had scored again, this time converting with a glancing header from Özil’s corner.

Olivier Giroud heads in Arsenal's third goal against Sunderland (Getty)

It was harsh on Sunderland, who had fought manfully prior to Arsenal’s third, but worse was to come.

When Gibbs struck the post two minutes later, Sunderland appeared to have had a fortunate escape, but such is their luck, the ball bounced to Sanchez, who tiptoed around Kone to score from close range.

It was brutal and ruthless from Arsenal, but as the Sunderland fans booed at the end, Moyes must now fear the same treatment from his bosses.

Teams

Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, O’Shea (Djilobodji, 42), Kone, Van Aanholt, Rodwell, Pienaar (Januzaj, 70), N’Dong, Khazri, Watmore (Gooch, 84), Defoe.Substitutes not used: Mika, Love, Anichebe, Manquillo.

Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Gibbs, Elneny, Coquelin (Maitland-Niles, 89), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Ramsey, 77), Ozil, Iwobi (Giroud, 69), Sanchez.Substitutes not used: Ospina, Jenkinson, Holding, Gabriel.

Referee: Martin Atkinson

Attendance: 44,322