EVERTON manager David Moyes was talking about his match-winner Brian McBride, but how apposite his comments are when used to describe Sunderland's plight.

"He gives us great honesty and commitment, and that's what you need in your team to make it work," Moyes said.

Hmmm, "honesty" and "commitment". Words that immediately leap out at you when watching any Sunderland performance under Howard Wilkinson.

Unfortunately, so does "limited". And, indeed, any number of adjectives that are normally hurled at any club two points from Premiership safety in January. Yes, McBride worked until he dropped on Saturday, but so did Kevin Phillips and the Sunderland midfield.

But where Everton had inspiration to go with their buckets of perspiration, Sunderland had little more than the fleeting moment of invention.

Moments such as Phillips's through ball that enabled Kevin Kilbane to give Sunderland a 34th-minute lead that could scarcely have been more against the run of play.

Look at the Everton team. Man for man, are they really 13 places and 20 points better than an injury-ravaged Sunderland side?

Yes, according to the Premiership table. But what a difference a midfield general would make to Sunderland. Someone, in fact, like Kevin Ball, who looked on from the Goodison stands as his former club succumbed to their fourth Premiership defeat in five.

One vignette summed up perfectly this obvious void in Sunderland's resources. With time running out, the Black Cats won a free-kick 35 yards out.

With an experienced hand on the tiller, Sunderland would have taken a few seconds to assess the situation, allowing Jody Craddock and Phil Babb to trot upfield, before delivering a telling set-piece into the Everton penalty area. Instead, with Craddock and Babb barely over the halfway line, the free-kick was played quickly to Phillips, tightly marked and 30 yards from goal.

Possession was quickly squandered, and Everton goalkeeper Richard Wright's clear vulnerability under the high ball was never tested again.

Oh well, perhaps a few days in the Spanish sun will brighten Sunderland's Winter of Discontent.

Knowing their luck, though, this week's trip to Iberia will coincide with a downpour of Biblical proportions. Such is life at the bottom of the Premiership.

Not that Sunderland's struggles have dampened their manager's mood as he faces up to an increasingly difficult challenge.

Wilkinson said: "It hasn't been a problem to lift myself. I still feel as fresh, I'm enjoying it as much and I'm as optimistic as I was when I came.

"I'll stay like that until the end of the season, when hopefully I'll recharge my batteries and then we'll start again.

"Obviously, we've got to lighten the mood. You can't start football matches depressed. If they're looking at me, Steve Cotterill and other people, we won't be like that.

"We're the ones who've got to get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say 'Smile! Here we go!' That's what we'll do this week.

"It's a working break. I'm hoping the weather is as kind to us as it normally is out there. It's a change of environment, and it may be a change of mood.

"Having said that, I don't think the mood has needed lightening over the last few weeks.

"I don't think they've felt under pressure in the working environment from anything we've said or done.

"There will be time to relax. The players won't have to drive to work; they won't have to drive home.

"But basically, we've got to come back from Spain better equipped as a group than when we left."

Moyes tried to be polite, but he seemed to be damning Sunderland with faint praise as he assessed their Goodison display.

"I thought Sunderland hung in there and kept fighting very hard. They worked really hard, but I thought we were on top for the majority of the game," he said.

"They had little pockets of play but we were on top overall, expect for the last 15 minutes when they had something to go for.

"Having said that, we relied on Richard Wright to make a couple of very good saves."

Indeed Everton did, and had either of Phillips's efforts either side of half-time gone in Sunderland would have been 2-0 up against a team without a win in six before Saturday.

But Everton ought to have been out of sight within the first 27 minutes as Sunderland's defence, usually so sound, creaked like an outhouse door in a hurricane.

Alan Stubbs wasted two early free headers, Thomas Sorensen made a smart stop from McBride, and Steve Watson struck a post.

Everton began the second half in rampaging mood - "They can be relentless when they get going. It's like the tide coming in," Wilkinson noted - and inside 12 minutes the Blues were in front. First, McBride's overhead kick took a deflection off Darren Williams before dribbling across the goalline. It was cruel on Sunderland, but no more than Everton deserved.

Worse was to come for the visitors. Sean Thornton and Jody Craddock made goal-saving blocks to keep Sunderland on level terms, but Everton were not to be denied.

McBride got the ball caught under his feet on the edge of the penalty area, but he turned smartly and drilled a low shot past a stationary Sorensen.

Moyes smiled as he said that Everton are "probably safe", almost four months before the end of the season. How Wilkinson wishes he could make such a pronouncement.

Result: Everton 2 Sunderland 1.

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