Lee Cattermole reveals where it all went wrong for David Moyes at Sunderland

The Scot took over from England bound Sam Allardyce at the start of the 2016/17 campaign after the ex-Bolton boss had kept the Black Cats in the Premier League at the expense of North East rivals Newcastle United.

Allardyce had moulded a strong team by successfully using loan midfielder Yann M’Villa alongside Lamine Kone and Younes Kaboul in defence with Tunisian attacker Wahbi Khazri up-front.

During the summer after Sunderland’s great escape, Kaboul left for Watford and the club failed to land M’Villa on a permanent deal.

Kone stayed but was subject to head-turning transfer speculation with talk of a big-money bid from Everton, and Moyes seemingly didn’t fancy Khazri and barely played the forward during his Stadium of Light tenure.

In an interview with the Roker Rapport Podcast, Cattermole revealed how the situations surrounding the French-speaking quartet played a key role in how the season panned out.

“That period for me was a write off with a hip injury, so he was a manager that I didn’t really have too much involvement with,” Cattermole explained.

“It was similar to the Gus [Poyet] era in terms of finishing a season as strongly as we did to then come back and lose three or four of your main players.

“Not getting those loans over the line into permanents was massive.

“Losing Younes Kaboul was huge, he was such a big player for us at the time in terms of helping the French boys.

“For Younes to leave the club was massive and obviously Yann M’Villa. Wahbi Khazri didn’t play much after that and these were all massive players for us the year before.

“Obviously, [Lamine] Kone we had a load of drama with the potential move to Everton. These were tough things going on at the club and unless they’re managed really well, it’s going to affect people.

“It was a frustrating season for us, we obviously lost our Premier League status which was massive because we'd worked for such a long time to remain.”