Stoke City and Sunderland have played out a scoreless draw at the Britannia Stadium today.

Both sides recorded their sixth draws of the campaign in a battle of attrition which saw the Black Cats fail to test Potters goalkeeper Asmir Begovic.

Stoke looked more likely to score and were extremely close when Sunderland's Carlos Cuellar headed Michael Kightly's effort clear off the line in the first half.

Sunderland had calls for a penalty when Steven Fletcher's shot appeared to have hit the arm of Robert Huth who was later denied by Simon Mignolet whilst Kightly was inches wide with a late effort in injury-time.

In the end, however, neither set of players were able to hit the target as Tony Pulis' Stoke moved up to 12th whilst Martin O'Neill's Sunderland remain 14th.

Stoke City: 0 Sunderland: 0

Britannia Stadium, Stoke-on-Trent - 27,005

Yellow cards:STO - Dean Whitehead 57', Peter Crouch 69' SUN - Danny Rose 21', Craig Gardner 84'