Sunderland boss David Moyes is angry over the prospect of losing Jermain Defoe for nothing this summer.

When the England striker joined the Black Cats on a three-and-a-half-year deal from Toronto in January 2015, it was written into his contract that he could leave on a free should they go down.

Club chiefs then failed to remove that clause when Defoe, 34, penned a one-year extension last summer, a month before Moyes took charge.

And the Black Cats boss admitted: “I am very surprised.

“I would hope if I was a manager, I would not have had a contract which would have allowed somebody to leave in that situation.

“What price might we have got for Jermain if we had gone down, albeit at his age?

“There would have been a decent price on Jermain's head and we have not got that."