Allardyce frustrated by more dropped points

Cape Town - Sam Allardyce has cited Sunderland's loss to Leicester City as another example of his team's recent tendency to surrender points from strong positions.

Despite being more than a match for the league leaders for the majority of Sunday's, Sunderland yet again find themselves in a position where they are regretting missed opportunities, something they have become very familiar with over the past four matches.

"My disappointment is not so much against the side top of the league who have only lost three all season," said Allardyce following his side's 2 - 0 loss to the Foxes.

"My disappointment is the points thrown away against West Brom, the points thrown away against Newcastle, and the points thrown away against Southampton."

While his side may never have been in a winning position, they were very competitive for the first hour and had Jack Rodwell converted his opportunity to equalise with just eight minutes left on the clock, a point would have been regarded as a fair outcome.

But as with their previous three matches, the relegation-threatened club simply couldn't show the resolve necessary to keep the pressure on 17th-placed Norwich City who had lost to Crystal Palace the day before.

"A draw would have been a fantastic result, particularly after we had gone 1-0 down, so we really needed Jack Rodwell to score that goal and then come away with a 1-1 because that would have been a point gained then, coming from behind.

"The disappointment last week was having 24 shots at goal and not scoring against West Brom, and before that having enough chances to have scored more than one goal at Newcastle and then to concede an equaliser in the last 10 minutes, and at Southampton to be 1-0 up against 10 men and then concede in the 93rd minute.

"That's our problem to resolve, and we have to resolve it very, very quickly now."