ANOTHER defeat, another nail in the coffin of a season that has been sunk by self-inflicted mistakes. Rarely can a club have shot itself in the foot as regularly or damagingly as Sunderland this season.

In isolation, a one-goal defeat to the league leaders is hardly a disaster. When it follows hot on the heels of four previous losses, though, it becomes part of a pattern that is going to be extremely hard to break. The Black Cats haven’t just lost momentum in the last month or so, they have imploded spectacularly to the point where it is far from clear whether the damage can be repaired.

Mike Dodds isn’t to blame for much of what has gone wrong, but having presided over three defeats since replacing the hapless Michael Beale, Sunderland’s interim head coach nevertheless increasingly looks like part of the problem rather than a possible solution. The more he tinkers, the more ineffective he appears.

The remaining ten matches of the season have the potential to become extremely uncomfortable, with Sunderland now closer to the bottom three than the play-off positions. A relegation battle remains unlikely, but striving for mid-table mediocrity is unlikely to be much more appetising.

The Black Cats’ latest defeat came courtesy of Jamie Vardy’s first-half header, and would have been much heavier had Anthony Patterson not made a string of superb first-half saves.

Sunderland rallied after the break, hitting the woodwork when Trai Hume’s long-range effort was tipped onto the bar, but having suffered three successive defeats themselves prior to heading to Wearside, Leicester were happy to shut up shop in the closing stages and scramble over the line. For all that Leeds, Ipswich and Southampton are snapping at their heels, the Foxes remain the team to beat.

The Black Cats proved incapable of matching them last night, paying the price for a dreadful opening spell in which they could easily have fallen more than a goal behind.

By switching to a five-man defence, Dodds presumably hoped to make his Sunderland side much harder to break down. Instead, by packing out the backline, the Black Cats boss effectively handed both the ball and the initiative to Leicester, encouraging the best team in the Championship to mount wave after wave of attacks. Somewhat predictably, the visitors did not need a second invitation.

Patterson made three sensational saves in the opening 13 minutes of the game, yet the quarter-hour mark still arrived with Sunderland having fallen a goal behind.

They should have conceded in the tenth minute when Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall broke behind Jenson Seelt into the left-hand side of the 18-yard box. The midfielder, whose forward breaks caused problems all evening, picked out Vardy with a cut-back, but Patterson parried the former England international’s shot. When the rebound broke to Yunus Akgun, the Black Cats goalkeeper produced an even better stop to keep out the Turkish forward’s follow-up effort.

Three minutes later, and Patterson was at it again, blocking Wout Faes’ header when the defender rose unopposed to meet Dewsbury-Hall’s free-kick. This time, though, when the rebound fell to Vardy, the veteran striker did not give Patterson a chance to complete another double-save, looping a header beyond him into the far corner.

The slickness of Leicester’s attacking stood in marked contrast to the stilted nature of Sunderland’s build-up play, with Luis Hemir tending to be an isolated figure as he led the line for the second game in a row.

The hosts did, at least, steady the ship after their rocky start, enjoying an increased share of possession as half-time approached, but their best moments tended to come when either Seelt or Luke O’Nien stepped out of defence to swell their numbers in midfield.

One such occasion came just after the half-hour mark, but while Jobe Bellingham met O’Nien’s cross with a deft glanced header, Leicester goalkeeper Mads Hermansen got down to his left to gather the ball.

That was Sunderland’s only effort at goal before the break, and the visitors would have been further ahead at the interval had Patterson not kept out Hamza Choudhury’s driven effort after Abdul Fatawu got the better of Leo Hjelde down Leicester’s right. It was proving to be a difficult night for Hjelde, who did not seem particularly well suited to either the defensive or attacking demands of playing as a wing-back.

Sunderland’s collective decision-making was poor all evening, as exemplified by the needless foul conceded by O’Nien in the early stages of the second half that earned him the game’s first booking. It was his tenth yellow card of the season, meaning he will be sidelined for the next two games.

At least, Dodds was aware of his side’ struggles, with his double substitution in the 59th minute helping to spark an undoubted improvement. Romain Mundle and Adil Aouchiche added some much-needed energy to Sunderland’s play in the final third, and within five minutes of the pair’s introduction, the hosts were coming within inches of claiming an equaliser.

Mundle helped tee up Hume on the right-hand side, and the wing-back fired in an excellent long-range effort that Hermansen tipped onto the crossbar. From nowhere, the Black Cats were at least suggesting they were capable of getting back into the game.

Hume tested Hermansen with another long-range strike with ten minutes remaining, but with Leicester pulling men behind the ball in order to protect their lead, the hosts were unable to fashion the equaliser that would have ended their losing run. Instead, they will head to Southampton at the weekend having failed to take a single point from the last available 15.