Sven Goran Eriksson has urged Newcastle United to stick with Sam Allardyce after the Manchester City manager helped increase the mounting pressure on his counterpart. City rose to fourth in the Premier League thanks to a comfortable 2-0 victory at St James' Park to intensify the heat on Allardyce, who faces a crunch FA Cup third round trip to Stoke City on Sunday.

Allardyce has the backing of millionaire owner Mike Ashley, but he admitted Newcastle had to improve after a third consecutive defeat meant they had harvested just nine points from their last 12 games to leave them anchored in the bottom half of the table. City manager Eriksson has backed Allardyce to turn things around if he is given time by the Newcastle board.

"Of course I have sympathy with Sam," said the former England head coach. "The longer you are in this job you know the same thing will happen to you and it's happened to me many times.

"They're hard times and they can last for weeks or they can last for months but Sam's shown in the past with Bolton that he's a good manager. Give him time and I'm sure he'll sort it out."

Crunch match
Defeat at the hands of Championship promotion hopefuls Stoke could drastically reduce the time Allardyce has to prove himself on Tyneside, and he acknowledged he must start putting together a run of results to justify continued boardroom support. "The Stoke game is not a defining one for me, but I'm not daft enough not to realise I'm in the results business and I need to win some football matches," he said.

"The pressure still mounts, it mounts on us all, especially me even with that support, because we've lost a game we shouldn't have. We shouldn't be losing at home, and we shouldn't be losing three on the trot but we'll stick together and believe in what we do.

"We played well tonight but you must score when you get your chances. Stoke will fancy it after this, but for us the pressure of the Premier League is off, and a win in the cup can help spark things off in the league."

Goals in each half from Brazilian midfielder Elano and Swiss substitute Gelson Fernandes secured only a second away of the season, their first since the opening day of the campaign, for a City side who are unbeaten at home in the league in their quest to qualify for Europe. And Eriksson wants his side to start reproducing their stunning form at Eastlands on the road to help maintain an unlikely push for a UEFA Champions League place.

"We've been waiting for that performance away from home for a long time. I can't be anything but happy with a result like that and I wish the league finished tomorrow because fourth place would be really good for us.

"I can't really answer why we've been so good at home and yet not done the same away from home, but I hope to come away with some more results like this before the end of the season," Eriksson concluded.