Tony Mowbray issues strong Sunderland message after third straight defeat at Leicester City

Tony Mowbray insisted his Sunderland side will quickly turn around their poor run of results if they can replicate their performance against Leicester City on Tuesday night.

The Black Cats fell to a 1-0 defeat after James Justin was left free to head home from a corner inside the first ten minutes.

Mowbray's side were indebted to Anthony Patterson for two excellent saves at the start of the second half, while Leicester also struck the post twice. However, Sunderland also created a number of big chances of their own and should have got a late equaliser when Abdoullah Ba fired over the bar from close range.

It was an entertaining game in which Sunderland gave the runaway leaders of the division a lot of problems, and Mowbray insisted he would take the positives despite his side falling to their third defeat in as many games.

"It's not a surprise to me that played well, we believed we could come here and win this game," Mowbray said.

"We missed some really good chances. Patterson made two really good saves and they hit the post, I get that. They're top-quality players and have a Premier League budget, we have a really young team. I asked them to go and challenge themselves, see if they want to play in the Premier League one day - how will you get on against a lot of these players? I thought we competed really well, just probably lacked the composure we needed at the top end of the pitch to give us what we maybe deserved from the game.

"It's not really a concern, if that's the level we are going to play at every week we're going to win enough games.

"We should highlight the energy of our team and the problems we caused the opposition and the chances we were able to create, we just need to improve the end product.

"We put a lot of work on defending set pieces because we're not a huge team, we knew there were going to be issues today. We knew had that they had five physically more powerful players, we only had four markers because we decided to go zonal in the six-yard box, and we've been done by someone running across one of the zonal players.

"It's two games on the bounce a free header has cost us points, and that's frustrating for us. But listen, as I've just said to them, let's keep performing at that level and the results will take care of themselves. I think Burnley had 19 points after 11 games last season, so let's not worry about Leicester. We ain't finishing above them, let's be good at what we do and keep getting better.

"Let's keep working hard for each other and playing this style which is going to get us results. I hope the supporters who came tonight to watch us, I hope they felt their team gave it a go. I wouldn't sleep at night if we came, sat everyone behind the ball and lost 1-0. We came and had a go, and I think on the balance of the game - I think we're unlucky not to come away with something."

Sunderland face Norwich City at the Stadium of Light on Saturday afternoon.