MARTIN O'NEILL has left the Sunderland squad under no illusions about his expectations for the rest of the season after a sudden slump in form.

After the heroics of his opening few months in charge at the Stadium of Light, O'Neill has led the Black Cats to just one win in their last seven matches.

That run has included a FA Cup quarter-final replay defeat to Everton, who followed that up with a crushing 4-0 scoreline on Easter Monday in the Premier League.

The sequence of results has seen Sunderland drop back out of the top ten ahead of the final five matches of the season, the first of those is tomorrow's visit of Wolves to Wearside.

And Welsh midfielder David Vaughan has moved to explain the demands what have been placed on the squad when the only thing remaining to play for this season is a top half finish.

"He's (O'Neill) disappointed with the performance on Monday and rightly so," said Vaughan. "It's down to the players to show we're better than that and provide the response the manager's looking for.

"He demands things off players and doesn't let the standards drop too much too often. Hopefully we can repay his faith. We're only four points off Liverpool so it's well within our reach to get that eighth spot at least."

If Sunderland are to close that gap to Liverpool, who play a FA Cup semi-final with Everton at Wembley tomorrow, then they need to defeat bottom club Wolves.

O'Neill was sat in the stands when the two teams met at Molineux in December, awaiting to take over from Steve Bruce, and Wolves recovered from conceding a goal to win 2-1.

"Football can change from week to week," Vaughan told the SAFCTV. "Half a season is a long time and everyone can see the difference in the two teams now. It's tough.

"They just about avoided relegation last season and they've got that experience behind them. They know what it's all about.

"There's a bit of an edge about the game and you know you've got to pick up points. Wolves will be desperate to get the three points because they're getting cut adrift a bit. They need the three points more than the draw.

"Their players have got something to prove that they're still capable of playing in the Premier League. They need to get the points to prove that."

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, meanwhile, has been recalling how and why he turned down the opportunity to sign Sunderland's Stephane Sessegnon.

Sessegnon moved to the North-East in January last year from Paris St Germain and has caught the eye of a number of Premier League clubs with his form this season.

But Redknapp claims he has no regrets about missing out on the Benin international, who is now thought to have a valuation of around £15m.

"Do I regret not taking Sessegnon? Not really," said the Tottenham manager, who also hinted he could have signed Hatem Ben Arfa before he joined Newcastle.

"He's a good little player but I've got Rafael van der Vaart. You're just going to cause yourself a bigger problem."

He added: "We could have had Sessegnon at one time, I think. The people who work for me weren't really convinced at the time. They were watching him, and they didn't feel that he was any better than what we had, in all honesty."