David Moyes claims his Sunderland managerial stint was the "biggest disappointment" of his career. Speaking to Alan Shearer and The Athletic, the West Ham boss claims that the Black Cats dismal few season's have not been down to one manager or one incident.
The Wearsider's plummeted out of the Premier League under Moyes, with a fast amount of supporters claiming his days as a Premier League manager were over. Sam Allardyce kept the Black Cats in the Premier League but his untimely departure to become England boss, saw Sunderland on the hunt for another manager.
Moyes was unable to repeat Allardyce's feat and steer them to safety. Instead, his appointment acted as the catalyst for Sunderland's downfall.
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“When I look back at it, they had just stayed up with Big Sam (Allardyce),” he said. “But it was by the skin of their teeth. I felt I would be able to do the same.
"And you only have to look at what has happened to Sunderland over the years to see there were bigger troubles there. It’s not just been down to one manager or one incident, so yes I chose wrong. That’s how things can go. It didn’t go so well for me at Sunderland.”
Moyes came under increased scrutiny after his failure at Sunderland and has opened up on the mental battle he had whilst out of work. He said: “Obviously when you’re not working, you find it tough. You always feel the criticism that you get when you leave your jobs, even if a lot of it isn’t quite correct and there’s a lot of untruths in it.
"You find yourself having to battle against things which you don’t think are fair, really. The biggest thing I did was make sure that I tried to go and retrain, relearn, keep myself busy.
"I think if you’re a real football person, you understand the levels people are at. People who have been professionals like yourself, players or managers in the game, understand that we can all have bad times and things can’t always go right, but I think there was a different level of media attention.
“It’s only if you’re in the business that you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s all the stuff we talk about with mental health nowadays, and I think we’re getting closer to understanding that, yet it’s still OK to discuss a football manager’s job on television or radio and people talk about it as if it’s a jokey matter.
“Did it have an effect? It did. But look, ultimately I’ve got a strong family, a great wife behind me, and we got through it fine. Football is a game. Sometimes it will be bad and you have to live with that, but you see what’s going on.”
