JOHN O’SHEA has called for every Sunderland player to become a leader in the fight to stay in the Premier League and deliver a result that will also shock the race for a top four spot.

The Black Cats are faced with the daunting prospect of having to beat third-placed Manchester City at the Stadium of Light on Sunday to boost their survival chances this weekend.

Pep Guardiola’s City are in good form and smashed Championship promotion contenders Huddersfield 5-1 at the Etihad on Wednesday in the FA Cup.

Sunderland claimed a point against Liverpool and Tottenham earlier this year and narrowly missed out on recording a positive result against leaders Chelsea before Christmas; two results which O’Shea refers to in his bid to raise hopes of stunning City.

The Irishman, speaking at a World Book Day event at the Stadium of Light yesterday, said: “We’ve had good performances here against the top teams – against Tottenham and Liverpool, and we should have really got something from the Chelsea game as well.

“With the games we have coming up after Manchester City, we have to make sure we respond to the pressure of these big game situations because every game now, like it has been all season, is so important. We have to take something from them.

“It’s one game at a time. Next up is Manchester City at home and if we perform to our best we can cause them lots of problems.”

Sunderland suffered their latest defeat at Everton last weekend when they were undone by two goals towards the end of each half. Other than those they had looked reasonably solid, while lacking a creative edge at the other end.

O’Shea thinks the mood has been good despite the defeat and, even if he is wearing the armband on Sunday, he wants to see more of his team-mates taking command.

He said: “Every player should feel that responsibility, captain or not. The more experience you have obviously the more guidance you can give to the younger players, whether it be the lads who’ve come in from other countries also.

“That’s the collective unit, the players, the coaches, strength and conditioning, physios, when everyone is going in the right direction that’s when you give yourself a chance.

“Ultimately it’s down to us and how we perform. The attitude in training this week has been fantastic, you maintain that and hopefully you have no injuries in the build-up to it.

“The manager has a team to pick, tactics to go for, and hopefully we enforce that on the pitch. We’ll be looking at areas hopefully we can exploit and if they are slightly underperforming we can take advantage of that.”

Midfielder Jan Kirchhoff has trained again this week and will be monitored in the next 24 hours to determine his availability for the City game. Kirchhoff has not played since damaging knee ligaments before Christmas.