Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce praises players after West Brom draw

Sam Allardyce said Sunderland deserved more from their "best performance of the season" as they were held to a 0-0 draw at home to West Brom.

Goalkeeper Ben Foster was in inspired form to deny the Black Cats in the second half but the result leaves Allardyce's side four points from safety in their fight against relegation.

Despite that, the Sunderland manager praised his side and quoted Al Pacino's character in the movie 'Any Given Sunday' to describe how close his side came to a win over the Baggies.

"It has been a magnificent performance here at the Stadium of Light and a very special performance in terms of how we committed to try and win this game," he said.

"To look at the stats will tell everybody just how dominant we were and, unfortunately for us, in this precarious position having not won it by dominating so much and creating so many chances, it is very difficult to take and leaves us in a very difficult position.

"We should have secured the three points; we haven't. I suppose we have to say the finishing touches let us down but Ben Foster was just outstanding and the inches, as Al Pacino said, were the wrong side for us.

"The inches on the wrong side of the post rather than the right side of the post might have got us a goal and then the inches when we finally scored was that our player was offside not onside, which would have given us a richly deserved victory today.

"We are very downhearted and upset we haven't won but I have to praise the players and be very proud of them on how they played, handled the pressure and how they performed.

"It is the best performance of the season since I've been here, there is no doubt about that and I believe, and I hope the players believe, if they continue in that vein that we will win more than we draw or lose from now until the end of the season."

Allardyce feels his side have been a match for just about any team they have faced in their last seven fixtures but is now looking ahead to next week's clash with Leicester and said that while his players should be confident in their performances, time is starting to run out in the race for survival.

"Can we be as good as we were today and can we beat Leicester? People won't expect us to but can we turn it round by doing that and hopefully that will spur us on. We will give Leicester one hell of a game if we perform like we did today," he said.

"They should feel confident in themselves when they perform like you have just seen them perform and they have been doing that now on a consistent basis, which is a huge way we have come since I arrived.

"We have started to control games, we have started to make sure the opposition find us very difficult to play against and we have been creating more and more chances game after game, so I believe we have come a huge way but the problem is we are still in the bottom three.

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"We have had great opportunities not to have done that and we are running out of time and hopefully the performances will maintain, the nerve ends will not jangle and we continue to try and play like this and start winning more games than we draw or lose."