Duncan Watmore enjoying life under Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce

Youngster Duncan Watmore is relishing the chance given to him by Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce since he took over on Wearside.

Watmore was the Black Cats Player of the Year in the Barclays U21 Premier League last season and has now started to make his impact on the first team.

Allardyce recently suggested the 21-year-old winger is capable of providing something Sunderland do not have in their ranks and he duly handed him a first Premier League start in the defeat to Southampton.

Despite losing the game 1-0, Watmore thoroughly enjoyed his experience and is relishing more chances under the new manager.

“The new manager has come in and everyone has been really impressed by what they’ve seen. Hopefully I can keep training well and keep taking opportunities to build on this platform,” he said.

Watmore felt Sunderland coped quite well with what is a fluid attacking Saints team, but he knows they must carry more of a threat themselves in the final third in order to get the points to take them away from the relegation zone.

“It was very disappointing because we worked hard throughout the 90 minutes,” he added.

“Maybe we didn’t look as much of a threat going forward as we would of liked, but defensively I thought we had them – they had a couple of chances but we were quite solid.

“If we do go behind we need to go and score but we didn’t do that, so we are very disappointed but we need to use the international break to get back going again and when we come back get a win.”

Sunderland face high-flying Crystal Palace next up at Selhurst Park, a game the Black Cats are 6.00 to win. Palace are 1.53 with the draw priced at 3.80.