Arsene Wenger’s side have slipped up in the second half of the season

“But they’ve had an opportunity that, without any doubt, Arsenal have missed”. Leicester have taken it. They were going to take advantage of the [Manchester] City, Chelsea and [Manchester] United slip-ups and win the league.

Arsenal had a brilliant chance to win the Premier League this season, with Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City floundering. “Up to now, Leicester have shown everybody how to do it”.

But Allardyce reckons Nigel Pearson, sacked as Leicester boss last summer and replaced by Claudio Ranieri, deserves thanks.

But Allardyce said: “I know Nigel extremely well and it’s sad he lost that opportunity”.

“It must be terribly frustrating for him to be sat at home now, out of work, looking at his boys producing what they have done”.

Allardyce will hold end-of-season talks with Black Cats owner Ellis Short before deciding on his future.

‘And that’s not where we want to be and we’ve made it much more hard for ourselves in the chance for the championship.

“I don’t want to be relegated for the first time in my career”. “That is why I said a lot of things have to be right, it is my aim to help the team and it is our goal to win titles and I think you can achieve that with Arsenal“. “We made it more hard today”. There are also clubs chasing us, so it is important to finish as high as we can.

Since the turn of the year, the Gunners have only been able to pick up 22 points out of a possible 39 in the league.

Arsenal were in control of the game as they led 2-0 after 35 minutes, with 19-year-old Nigerian starlet Alex Iwobi setting up goals for Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez.