THERE was another blow for Sunderland to endure in London, where Winston Reid's stoppage-time winner sealed three points for West Ham. Here are four of the key talking points for the Black Cats:

A CLEAN SHEET - ALMOST

Finally, it seemed, Sunderland would have a clean sheet to celebrate. At the ninth time of asking that elusive victory may still not have arrived anyway, but at least it looked like they were not going to concede.

Jordan Pickford and the men in front of him had performed solidly and deserved credit until that last minute of stoppage-time that smacked of a team rooted to the bottom, when everything goes against them.

The bottom line is that Reid's winner stemmed from a lack of concentration rather than the offside that Sunderland's players claimed, and that has become the story of the season so far.

It will be how the players pick themselves up now, with the visit of Arsenal on the cards next Saturday following the midweek trip to Southampton in the EFL Cup.

Clean sheets alone will not be enough to keep Sunderland up, but at least one at West Ham would have provided a platform to build on. Now it’s back to the drawing board – again.

IMPROVED FULL-BACKS

After a shaky start from both Patrick van Aanholt and Javier Manquillo, both players became crucial to the Sunderland performance in keeping West Ham out until the 94th minute.

The understanding of Lamine Kone and John O’Shea was apparent, even if the former looked like he lacked a bit of match fitness in the second half.

But van Aanholt and Manquillo did not have such problems. They were impressive for the majority of the afternoon in keeping the Hammers’ wide players relatively quiet, while they also contributed going forward too.

Sunderland will need them to play like that every week if they are to get out of the mess they are in, but that task is already hardening by the week.

THE MIDDLE MEN

Eyebrows may have been raised at the sight of Steven Pienaar playing furthest forward in the three man midfield consisting of Didier Ndong and Jack Rodwell.

And while it was largely negative, with Jermain Defoe rarely supported for counter-attacks, the work-rate of the three was crucial in helping out the Sunderland back four.

There was a reliance on counter-attacks but that looked like it would do the job; and on another day it might have even earned an away victory. The reality, though, is that when the players tired West Ham took command again to seal the points.

CONSISTENT GOALKEEPER

He might only be 22 years of age but it is little wonder Jordan Pickford is already on the England radar. The young goalkeeper made an impressive first half stop to deny Dimitri Payet, while he also showed his excellent handling throughout the afternoon too.

Pickford’s distribution has been good since he stepped into fill the void left by Vito Mannone and that continued in East London. The academy graduate will keep getting better and on the evidence of his displays so far – this being the latest – Sunderland have a long term international on their books.

MANAGER REACTION

David Moyes said: "The match officials think it was onside, I definitely think it was offside.

“And you could tell by his reaction, because the referee walked towards his linesman so he was aware that there was a problem with it.

 “That’s the disappointing thing, because the players earned something out of today’s game.

“It wasn’t as pretty as we would like, but we are trying to build a bit of confidence.

“We had the point. We should have done better at the corner, but we needed a decision to go our way and it didn’t go.”

Slaven Bilic said: "It was a dramatic end. It was a good game of football. Our start was by far the best start we've made this season. We played good football and should have been one or two goals up, but we didn't take the chances that we created.

"They came back and the second half was very open. We pushed up and they had some good counter-attacks and our goalkeeper made a terrific save. In the last 15 minutes we changed it a little bit with a couple of strikers and got some good set-pieces and from one of those we scored.

"We deserved it, just. Overall, over the course of the 90 minutes, I thought we were better."