SAM ALLARDYCE has hinted he is ready to stay faithful to the players serving him well in Sunderland’s battle to beat the drop.

The Black Cats will face leaders Leicester City on Sunday and they could be seven points adrift of safety if Norwich City win at Crystal Palace on Saturday.

But Allardyce is trying not to think about what Norwich or Palace do and just wants his team to keep maintain better performances believing the victories will follow.

And, having surprised everyone by recalling Lee Cattermole for Jack Rodwell for last weekend’s goalless draw with West Brom, he appears to be satisfied with all of his squad ahead of facing the Foxes.

He said: "I have not had to make too many changes which, from my point of view, is good. It's all about the players out on the field keeping the shirt.

“While we are very disappointed that we have not got six more points from the last three games, which we should have done, I think, based on the level of performance, we have not had any need to change the team apart from I felt Lee Cattermole being back in the side would give us a bit more than Jack.

“In the end, not by the result but the whole team, they gave the best performance given over 90 minutes since I have been here so I still maintain if we continue to keep that up and, more importantly, do what we did last Saturday and keep a clean sheet, that will give us enough and we will win enough games to stay in this league.”

Allardyce reported no fresh injury problems so he has strong options ahead of Sunday, even though young winger Duncan Watmore remains sidelined with ligament damage.

The Sunderland boss said: "Only Duncan is still recovering. It is probably a couple of weeks before we see him back. Everyone else is OK. We’ve got a couple of sniffles and wheezes which we hope are going to be all right and not develop into anything else. But we are fit and raring to go hopefully.”