Chris Coleman believes Sunderland’s Easter fixtures are ‘season defining’ as they look to strike fear into the teams around them.
The Black Cats remain five points adrift at the foot of the Sky Bet Championship table, but still with eight games left to turn their campaign around.
While there’s no match this weekend due to the international break, attention at the Academy of Light is focused solely on next weekend’s crunch Easter fixtures.
The lads travel to promotion hopefuls Derby County on Good Friday before returning to Wearside to face Sheffield Wednesday three days later.
And speaking to safc.com, boss Coleman has highlighted the significance of next weekend’s matches, admitting his players must treat their trip to the iPro as if it’s their last match of the season.
“It’s quite worrying that we can’t seem to get away from where we are,” he said.
“Nevertheless, with eight games there are still points to be had. There are still opportunities to be had despite them getting smaller.
“With every game that passes the task gets tougher and tougher, but I think this break has been a welcome one.
“We will recharge our batteries and I think next weekend will be a defining weekend for everybody.
“We have to look at it as though Derby County is our last game of the season and try to get a result.
“Once you start looking beyond that you are on dodgy ground,” he continued.
“We have to throw everything into it. We are lacking confidence and belief in certain areas.
“We go into things with the best intentions but there seems to be an acceptance that when something goes wrong, it is never going to go right.
“I know what football is like whether it’s good or bad and for us we have got to keep thinking it can change.
“Even if we win and teams around us don’t, we won’t move out of the bottom three but what we will do is give the teams a scare.
“We are still here despite being written off. Remember us? We’ve still got something to say and we can only do that with three points.”