Sam Allardyce felt Sunderland were hardly done by on Tuesday night.

The Black Cats lost 1-0 to Manchester City at the Stadium of Light but it could have been a different scoreline if not for the goalkeeping heroics of Joe Hart.

The England number one denied Jermain Defoe in the first half and forced Billy Jones to fire the follow-up into the post before again keeping out Jones in the second half and thwarting Wahbi Khazri's corner to maintain his side's narrow lead.

"Harty has certainly won Man City the points today with the saves that he made, particularly that one (from Defoe) and the follow-up from Billy Jones," Allardyce told Sky Sports after the game.

"And then we missed a couple which we should have converted. If we can keep that level of performance up, then hopefully it will bring us points quickly.

"If we can play like that, yes [we can stay up]," he added. "But we have to be more clinical in terms of converting our chances.

"Jermain Defoe wriggled himself with one really good chance, which Hart made a fantastic save from."