Sebastian Coates a doubt for Sunderland’s trip to Chelsea

Younes Kaboul was forced to miss last weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Watford with a similar problem, and Sunderland struggled to cope with the Frenchman’s absence, with Allardyce having to abandon his five-man defensive formation within the opening 20 minutes of the game.

Allardyce publicly stated during his media briefing that he feels it is a “sad state of affairs” when teams begin to play better following the sacking of a manager, but that is something that most Black Cats would argue has actually taken place at the Stadium of Light since his arrival, with overall performances and collective efforts from players improving ten-fold.

‘Ideally, I’d like to bring none in.

“So, there will be many disappointments because I find the success rate in January very low indeed”.

“You can be told a player is available and then when you move for them you get ‘Who told you he was available?”

“It’s a case of the old scenario: “Is he available?” One: Is he available, yes.

“But I want those already here to be achieving more than they have been”.

“I find it irresponsible from a players” point of view, especially when they come out after the game and say, “We’ve done that for the manager'”. You have to be able to pick your players up and make sure it doesn’t get to them. It’s a hard judgment call you have to make at this time’.

Allardyce, who described Chelsea’s demise this season as “staggering”, added: “The encouraging thing is that Bournemouth have just beaten Manchester United and Chelsea and Newcastle have just beaten Liverpool and Tottenham, so on that basis if you play our very best on the day you can get a result in the Premier League”. A win for the away side would see them join Chelsea on 15 points, and potentially drop the Blues into the relegation zone as well.

‘We’ve got to look for points against the so-called big boys because, at this moment in time, it’s the big boys who are slipping up more than anybody else’.