SUNDERLAND have crashed to within a point of the Premier League relegation zone, and Leicester boss Nigel Pearson expects their worries to intensify as his own in-form team continue their remarkable rise up the table.

Leicester’s 2-0 win over Swansea on Saturday made it three wins in a row for the Foxes, who have moved to within a point of Sunderland despite looking dead and buried a couple of weeks ago.

Burnley’s 1-0 defeat at Everton was a much better result for the Black Cats, but with Burnley and Leicester playing each other this weekend, Dick Advocaat will take his side to Stoke City knowing they could find themselves in the bottom three if they fail to take a point from the Britannia Stadium.

With next weekend’s programme also pitting QPR against an out-of-form West Ham and Hull against a Crystal Palace side who were comprehensively beaten on home soil on Saturday, there is every chance of the picture at the foot of the table changing markedly in five days time.

When Sunderland won the Wear-Tyne derby a fortnight ago, it was hoped the result would spark an improvement that would carry the Black Cats to safety. Instead, it is Leicester who head into the final month of the season with a strong sense of momentum, while the Wearsiders nervously look over their shoulder and wonder where their next point is coming from.

“It is never easy to achieve three wins in a row for a club in our sort of position,” said Pearson, whose Leicester side travel to Sunderland on May 16 for a game that could prove decisive to both teams’ fortunes. “It is what we needed at this stage of the season.

“I am pleased for the players. They have really committed to the season. I can bemoan our luck at times, but we have kept our season alive and winning games certainly helps that.

“We still have six games left, and we have to get as many points as possible from them. That is going to be a big challenge, but our fate is in our hands now, which is how we want to keep it for as long as possible.”

Leicester’s sudden resurgence has been compared to Sunderland’s remarkable run of form at the end of last season, and while the Black Cats are not yet in a position where they have to achieve the seemingly impossible to survive, the fact the last two games of the season are at Arsenal and Chelsea is leading some to talk of another ‘Great Escape’.

There is reason to believe both games could turn out to be slightly easier than they appear on paper – Arsenal will have an FA Cup final appearance looming on the horizon, while Chelsea will almost certainly have been crowned champions before they kick off on the final day – but Sunderland will surely have to win at least one of their next four matches to have any chance of surviving.

Their search for a permanent head coach has been shelved until the end of the campaign, although weekend reports linked them with a possible move for Watford boss Slavisa Jokanovic.