Where's Dean Holdsworth when you need him? Sam Allardyce needs a bit more luck to get Sunderland out of trouble

The Black Cats are in Norfolk ahead of this lunchtime’s date with fellow strugglers Norwich City. Defeat for Allardyce’s side at Carrow Road would leave them seven points behind the Canaries with just five matches remaining.

Depending on how Newcastle fare at home to Swansea later in the day, Sunderland could even find themselves dropping down to second from bottom at such a crucial stage of the season.

Sunderland have entered the final month of the campaign having won just one of their last 11 matches, even though there have been signs of improvement since the arrivals of the January recruits.

But Allardyce thinks he needs greater fortune in his attempts to lift Sunderland out of trouble –knowing he can’t afford any more bad luck at Norwich or hopes of survival will have deteriorated further.

“You should always surround yourself with lucky people,” said the Sunderland boss. “Not those people who are negative and always ill. Surround yourself with lucky people and it’ll rub off on you, don’t worry about that. Dean Holdsworth (the former Bolton striker, who is now chief executive at the Macron Stadium) is one of them.

“I went to the races with Dean Holdsworth eight times and I gave Dean Holdsworth my money every time and he never stopped winning.

“You could call that good research on knowing the bookies and knowing the jockeys and all that, but you go to the races on a race day, you give Dean a hundred quid and at the end of the day he says here’s £200. You say, thanks Dean, you can be my mate.”

Sunderland have struggled to collect three points from matches, but they have also only lost four matches since January and all of those were against top six sides: Tottenham, Manchester City, West Ham and Leicester City. Allardyce hopes the chances of staying up have not gone already.

He said: “We shouldn’t have lost those games. We shouldn’t have lost to Man City and we shouldn’t have lost to West Ham. It’s a fine line.

“We had our chance to win games during that run as well and my disappointment is whether we get that chance again because we’ve blown those. Those were Southampton, Newcastle and West Brom. Now we’d be pretty much saying we’ve got six games left, a win and two draws, or two wins and we’ve done it lads.

“The pressure would be heaped on Norwich and Newcastle. We had that spell and we should have done it during that spell. That’s where my big concerns lie, can we find a way to get over the line?”

Sunderland performed admirably last Sunday when leaders Leicester travelled to the North-East, but Jamie Vardy suddenly found his feet in front of goal to score twice in the final 24 minutes.

Vardy, destined to play for England at Euro 2016 on the back of his amazing season, has shown everyone that heart and desire are just as important as talent and the Foxes are reaping the benefits of hard work.

The 29-year-old was playing for Fleetwood Town in 2012 and is now in the running to be the PFA player of the year and he would get Allardyce’s vote.

The Sunderland chief said: “Player of the Year? Vardy. More players of his type should come from where he’s come from and make the grade at the top level, and we’ve forgot about it.

“We’ve forgot that used to be a lot of our sources of top level footballers by letting them play in the first team down there and bring them through slowly but surely.

“Now it’s all about numbers and numbers at the top end. They don’t filter down here anymore. They just pack in and never come back. Whereas it’s much better if they come from here and are much hungrier. Much more passionate and determined about it when they come like that.

“By the look of his career in the early stages it was quite difficult because of his early years and discipline was maybe a bit of a problem for him but in the end all those experiences have made him what he is today. I think his game now is absolutely fantastic. All of his game. He’s got the lot. The lot.”