Sam Allardyce: Sunderland cannot afford defeat against Bournemouth
Sam Allardyce has warned his Sunderland players they simply cannot afford to lose to Bournemouth if they are to dig themselves out of Barclays Premier League relegation trouble.
The sides meet at the Stadium of Light on Saturday with the Black Cats still four points from safety despite winning two of their last three league games, and six adrift of the Cherries in 15th.
Victory for the home side would drag Eddie Howe's men back into the thick of the survival scrap, but anything else would compound Allardyce's problems.
He said: "At all costs, we cannot lose this game, for me. We must try to win it if we can, but if we can't, make sure we don't lose it because the distance then between Bournemouth and us, even though people say there are a lot of games to go, there aren't.
"Hopefully we will win it, but if we don't, make sure we don't lose."
In Sunderland's favour is the fact that their two most recent successes have come against fellow relegation candidates Aston Villa and Swansea.
However, they are yet to draw any of the 15 games for which Allardyce has been in charge to date - they have won five and lost the other 10 - and that is a statistic which continues to perplex the manager.
He said: "They have done one good thing - win five - in the short period of time I have been here. The only thing is they haven't done the other thing very well, which is draw games that they shouldn't have lost and made sure they should have drawn."
Bournemouth will head for Wearside on the back of a precious 3-0 victory over Norwich with manager Eddie Howe knowing back-to-back victories could ease them well clear of trouble.
Allardyce said: "Eddie has been progressing steadily over a few years now, even though he still looks very young and handsome and not as haggard as most of us when we do this job.
"His experiences over the years have shown that he's very competent as a manager and now he's at the top level of his industry, so it's great credit to him and the club as a whole on what they have achieved."
Dame N'Doye could be handed a Sunderland debut against Bournemouth after signing on loan from Trabzonspor for the rest of the season. He could replace Steven Fletcher who reported illness on Thursday.
Full-back DeAndre Yedlin returns after being ineligible for last weekend's trip to parent club Tottenham. Defender Younes Kaboul (hamstring) and midfielder Sebastian Larsson (knee) are still out.
Bournemouth manager Howe has warned his players to "nullify" Jermain Defoe in order to pull off a crucial victory at Sunderland.
Howe hailed his one-time Cherries team-mate as "still one of the best players I've played with".
Bournemouth failed to tempt former England star Defoe into a Dean Court return in the summer, and now Howe has highlighted the 33-year-old as the Black Cats' danger man.
"He has the ability to score key goals in tight games, so we certainly know about his strengths," said Howe of Defoe, who has hit nine Premier League goals this term.
"Our key aim is to nullify him, keep him quiet. Of course there are very good players around him, but certainly his form has been very good of late."
Defoe's goals have sustained Sunderland's relegation battle so far, but now Howe wants Bournemouth to claim victory in the north east to edge themselves further away from the drop zone.
"I didn't realise it was 15 years ago that Jermain was here, that makes me feel old," said Howe.
"I'm not surprised he's still playing.
"When we got him he was a young lad, making his way in the game and trying to build his career and he did that in style here.
"He transformed our season from being relegation candidates to promotion candidates, and that was really down to him.
"He's a great lad, he lives for scoring goals, that's what he wants to do and he's still managing to do it at the very highest level."
Admitting Bournemouth were unable to lure Defoe to the south coast this summer, Howe hailed big-money January recruits Benik Afobe and Lewis Grabban as ready to fire the goals to keep the Cherries in the top flight.
"If you look at our strikers, how Benik (Afobe) finished his goal last week was hugely impressive for me, not just the finish in itself but the movement to get there.
"We believe in the players we have here that they have enough to score goals at this level."
Source: PAR
