DAVID MOYES will take Sunderland’s relegation-threatened squad for a ‘bit of running through Central Park’ next week and wants them to head to New York on the back of a performance that suggests they can stay in the Premier League.

Moyes was delighted with the response of his team at Crystal Palace last Saturday, when they recorded a comprehensive 4-0 having been told about the trip to America in the build-up.

He is now keen for Sunderland, who could climb out of the bottom three by defeating Southampton this afternoon, to build on the chance they have given themselves – and he is ready to offer more exciting adventures if he they can provide regular repeats.

Moyes – whose side don’t play for 14 days after today - has lined up some sporting action for his players to watch the NBA and NHL, while there will be opportunities to take in the sights of the big apple when they are not maintaining fitness levels.

It’s a little different to the normal mid-season warm weather training breaks to Spain, Portugal or Dubai, with the latter where Sam Allardyce took the squad last season.

He said: “We all like the sunshine, apart from us ginger lads. But I’ve done it (New York) before and it works, so I’m hoping it will again.

“We’ll train every day and we have lots of things organised - cycling, running. We’ll do quite a bit of running in Central Park. The players also have downtime for sightseeing and other things.

“Sometimes they need a bit of a break. We are going to watch basketball, a few going to the ice hockey, a few will go to Ground Zero so culturally hopefully I will educate the boys up here as well.

“They’ll all do Ground Zero, and we’ll encourage that. You’d be surprised how many lads haven’t done that. They’re all pretty excited about it. We go Monday to Friday. I definitely sensed a lift when I told them about it before the Palace game.

“I’ve always thought if you treat players right, give them the best you can, then you can expect the best back from them every week. We ask a lot of them so I’ll try to give my players the best back and make them feel good.

“I have done it before. It’s something different. I know how it works. It gives them something to look forward to. I told them last week and I hope they give me the same sort of response I got at Palace, so I want the same again. I might come up with somewhere else!”

It is even colder in New York than it is on Wearside at the moment, with temperatures below zero during daytime. “The psyche is that, when we come back, we’ll think this is Dubai,” joked Moyes.

He hopes to be smiling at 5pm today too, when Southampton return south. Sunderland have been in promising positions to escape the bottom three before, only to slip back in. Given the manner of the victory at Palace a week ago, the Scot is wary of making any wild predictions.

Asked if he has to threaten to take the trip away if they lose after promising it before the Palace game, Moyes said: “No, no. I didn’t promise it, I told them we were going, but I just felt we got a lift out of it. The focus is on the game obviously.

“But I’m just saying that if they can give me a performance of the levels they showed against Palace it’ll give us every chance of getting a good result - we need those levels between now and the end of the season.

“It would give a great lift to everybody if we climbed out of the bottom three. But I’m just going to change that around a little bit, because we’ve been in this position once or twice already this season and we’ve not done it. I’m mindful of that. I’ve got to make sure we do it this time.”

The pre-Christmas victory over Watford was the fourth victory in seven matches and yet Sunderland did not win another game until last weekend’s trip to Selhurst Park; stretching back eight matches.

Such a poor run of results since the festive period has seen them drop back to the foot of the table and the manager – who has Jack Rodwell missing through injury and will not rush back goalkeeper Jordan Pickford - is desperate for a bounce from last weekend.

Moyes said: “We’ve got to get this done. We’ve played well, we’ve eliminated mistakes in our last couple of games, we’ve picked up four really good points and we have to show we’re capable of doing it again. And not just be talking about it and not getting there. We won’t get opportunity after opportunity of doing it.

“Maybe we’re a club that doesn’t find it easy when the expectation rises. Maybe we’re better when we’re backs to the wall a little bit. We’re used to that here. Now we’ve got a chance we’ve got to show that we can take it and get a result.”