SAM ALLARDYCE is not enjoying the battle to beat the drop and, provided Sunderland emerge with a Premier League place intact, he is adamant he will not have to suffer a repeat next season.

When Sunderland leave the field at Stoke City this afternoon they will only have three games remaining to safeguard their top-flight future.

The Black Cats will be above the bottom three if they win at the Britannia Stadium, regardless of what Newcastle and Norwich do against Crystal Palace and Arsenal respectively.

That is what Allardyce is stressing to his players; survival is now firmly in Sunderland’s own hands. The challenge facing him is to keep them there, and it’s certainly not a position he is happy to be in with time running out.

Allardyce said: “It’s not exciting in my shoes. Another manager said to me the other day ‘you haven’t half aged going into that job.’ Thanks very much. It’s totally consuming.

“I’ve had less disturbing nights since the turn of the year because of the form of the players and the way they have turned things around in all areas, physically, tactically and technically. The hugely disappointing thing is we should have got ourselves out of trouble already and now we have to do it in the last four games.”

The 61-year-old has never been relegated from the top tier, at his age he doesn’t want that to change now. The situation is not getting to him, though. In fact he claims to be revelling in it.

Allardyce said: “I don’t mind the pressure now but I’d prefer to not be doing damage limitation, not fighting fires and a lot of fires had to be extinguished here. We’ve done all that, now we’re trying to come out the other end with a positive end to the season.

“I wouldn’t like to go through this again, but if we do get out of it, it will be a great satisfaction for me personally and the team.”

He is frustrated Sunderland are still in such a precarious position. A few weeks ago he thought safety was within their grasp only for them to fail to capitalise.

He said: “We go for the win at Stoke. We were drawing at the Stadium of Light against West Brom and when we came in, Newcastle and Norwich were drawing 2-2 in the 92nd minute. Norwich went and scored and won 3-2.

“When the whistle blew at our game I didn’t think it was too bad, but by the time I got into the dressing room, Norwich had won and made our job so much harder.

“I had a very bad weekend, I couldn’t cope, it was just ridiculous the way the weekend had gone, how we somehow hadn’t managed to get three points and they had sneaked a win, it made it so much harder.

“But we lived up to the challenge of beating Norwich. We did that and we came close to beating Arsenal, now we have to follow that with a win against Stoke.”