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They spent 90 minutes camped out in the visitors half and fired shot after shot at goal but they could not beat the heroics of Jurgen Macho.
The Austrian keeper was immense and batted away everything Liverpool could throw at him.
Just six minutes had passed when Liverpool began the ultimately futile onslaught with Emile Heskey firing wide from 20 yards.
In the last week Gerard Houllier has seen his expensively assembled team suffer their first Premiership defeat and get knocked out of the Champions League.
So he rang the changes - dropping Steven Gerrard after publicly criticising the England midfielder and benching John Arne Riise - and the side looked determined to dispense with the opposition and get on with the job of winning the league.
But despite the energy and attacking prowess nothing was getting past Howard Wilkinson's determined team.
Liverpool's best effort of the first half came from a 20-yard Danny Murphy free-kick in the 27th minute.
Michael Owen rose to meet the sweet curling cross and fired in a perfect shot but, just as the ball seemed to be crossing the line, Macho got down and managed to push it away.
Then seven minutes later Owen dug out a fierce 20-yard shot from the edge of the area - and again the keeper plucked it out of the air with a wonder save.
Liverpool kept up the momentum after the break with virtually every player on the pitch having a go at grabbing the winning goal.
It was Murphy who provided the driving force for the home side and his spark of creativity gave Wilkinson's side a whole heap of trouble.
His free-kicks were a constant danger and his link-up play with Owen was a real inspiration but no-one could find the back of the net.
And as the game wore on Sunderland defended deeper and deeper and in the end it was enough for the Black Cats to snatch a draw.