David Moyes felt Tottenham’s superior quality made life very tough for Sunderland in their 1-0 defeat at White Hart Lane but he praised his players for their attitude.

The home side set a seasonal high with 31 attempts on goal but only Harry Kane’s second-half strike separated the teams on the scoresheet.

Sunderland were forced to defend for much of the game but Moyes felt they still managed to create enough chances of their own to suggest they could have got something out of the match.

Adnan Januzaj was red-carded late on as the visitors lost for the fourth time in five league games under Moyes.

“I think possibly the best chance of the game was for Steven Pienaar in the first half, and then we went down to ten men – it was tough at the end, but we still tried to make a chance or two,” said the Scot.

“It was a tough game for us, Tottenham had most of the ball, we had to defend for long periods, but at least we gave ourselves a chance of winning it – we were never out of the game today.”

After a poor display in their 3-0 home loss to Everton last week, Moyes felt there were signs of progress against Spurs.

The Black Cats boss did concede however that Mauricio Pochettino’s team simply had too much quality. “I wanted us to play much better, but Tottenham’s quality forced us to be the way we were.

We found it tough against them, but we hung in, we made some chances ourselves, and maybe we were a bit unlucky,” he added.

Sunderland are 2.88 to get their first league win against Crystal Palace at the Stadium of Light on Saturday. The visitors are 2.50 with the draw 3.10.