Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce has admitted that his side face the prospect of being cut adrift at the bottom end of the Premier League if they fail to pick up points in their next two outings.
The Black Cats lost 1-0 at Allardyce's former club West Ham United on Saturday afternoon to miss out on the chance of temporarily pulling themselves to safety.
With games against Crystal Palace and Southampton to come over the next week, Allardyce claims that his side now face "massive pressure" to start turning narrow defeats and draws into wins.
"We must hope that if we continue to play like that we'll get the victories we need very quickly," he is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. "We've made a massive pressure game for ourselves on Tuesday night when we play Palace at home and then it's Southampton away.
"We have to pick points up in both of those games because after that we don't play for two weeks and if the teams around us win then that distance becomes even greater and more pressure comes on us.
"The next two games we have to deliver at least four points, hopefully more, but we've put a lot of pressure on ourselves."
Sunderland have won just one of their last six league outings - a 2-1 triumph over Manchester United earlier this month.
