SUNDERLAND earned the most tenacious of draws at the Britannia Stadium yet dropped ominously into the relegation zone.

And those contrasting facts will leave fans this week pondering the perennial Premier League poser on Wearside - is our glass half-full or half-empty this season?

Certainly, with victories for relegation rivals Leicester and Hull dropping them into the bottom three, their plight has worsened.

But if the Black Cats are be demoted this season, then this is how they should go - fighting tooth and claw all the way.

There could hardly have been a more marked contrast to their abject surrender in heavy home defeats to Aston Villa and Crystal Palace, than a performance of huge character in the West Midlands.

A look at the team-sheets before kick-off offered little encouragement that Sunderland would be able to get something against a Stoke side in pursuit of their highest-ever Premier League finish.

No Adam Johnson, Seb Larsson, Wes Brown, Emanuele Giaccherini, Ricky Alvarez or Steven Fletcher and the Black Cats’ bench hosted youngsters Liam Agnew and George Honeyman while across from them sat the likes of Peter Crouch and fit-again Peter Odemwingie.

Yet it was Sunderland who took a shock lead with only 59 seconds on the clock - the Stoke defence napping as Connor Wickham seized on keeper Asmir Begovic’s fumble of Will Buckley’s cross from the right.

No-one could quite believe it and if Jermain Defoe could have capitalised on a pearler of a pass from Lee Cattermole, clipped 40 yards forward with the outside of his boot, Sunderland might well have been on for only their third away win of the season.

“We had some decent chances in the game, chances that you have to put away at this level,” reflected head coach Dick Advocaat. “If that Defoe chances goes in, it becomes 2-0 and you never know what might happen.”

The livewire striker drilled his shot into the side netting, underlining the fact that though he has contributed since arriving in January, it has yet to mount up to a decisive contribution.

By that stage though the game had already swung the home side’s way.

Stoke had been on a charge which only increased when Lee Cattermole had to rein himself in after an 18th minute booking.

Charlie Adam ran the game for most of the first 45 minutes and capped it with a glorious goal in the 27th minute, smashing an unstoppable shot home, with this time the Sunderland defence failing to pick up or close down.

“Smacked it with his weaker right foot too,” mused admiring Stoke boss Mark Hughes.

Sunderland’s defence creaked but did not crumble as it came under more and more pressure before the break.

Skipper John O’Shea typified the resistance, taking a boot in the face on the stroke of half-time which required prolonged treatment, but still emerging, patched-up to lead his side in a much-improved second-half performance.

It was played at great pace by both sides - a fine advert for the full-blooded nature of the English Premier League - and provided a plethora of goalscoring chances.

Advocaat made an important tactical change when it got under way, replacing Buckley with Danny Graham and switching to 4-3-3. Sunderland produced the clearer cut chances and more of them too.

Defoe and Patrick van Aanholt squandered decent chances, Jordi Gomez forced a save from Begovic.

But Connor Wickham and Will Buckley looked certain to score when through on goal but were both denied by brilliant last ditch blocks.

Stoke meanwhile shot on sight, usually from outside the box.

Jonathan Walters, who had wasted a decent chance in the first-half, headed over the crossbar from close-range in the second.

But Costel Pantilimon twice produced saves of the highest quality - deflecting Mame Diouf’s shot wide from just a couple of yards out and clawing away another spectacular Adam effort, a looping snapshot from outside the box, which had every right to deceive the keeper.

Substitutes Crouch and Odemwingie asked different questions of the Sunderland defence but with centre-halves O’Shea and Sebastian Coates in complete harmony, it was Sunderland who finished on top and pushing for a winner.

“We should have come with all three points,” said Connor Wickham.

“I can live with a point,” shrugged Advocaat. “We still have five games to go and everything is open with the bottom five or six clubs, so we will try to stay positive.”

On balance, a draw was probably a fair result.

A decent away point for Sunderland. No doubt.

But how full is that glass, as the games start to run out?