Following Howard Wilkinson's sudden and surprise departure from the Stadium of Light, Sunderland players have been gripped buy a reality check.

Despite relegation being a near-certainty, Chief Sports Writer Steven Baker finds goalkeeper Thomas Sorenson in reflective mood and more than happy to talk about the club's dire situation.

SUNDERLAND'S new training complex is now a psychobabble-free zone. The nonsensical mind games played by the club's hapless former manager have left, together with the man who peddled them against a backdrop of widespread derision. In its stead is a frank understanding of the apocalyptic position that Sunderland find themselves in.

When Howard Wilkinson was steering the good ship Sunderland full steam ahead towards the Nationwide League, the club seemed in constant denial.

"Crisis? What crisis?" was their attitude; the Premiership table, of course, told a very different story.

But if acknowledging that one has a problem is the first step towards redemption, then at last they have finally begun the long haul back to respectability.

As articulate off the pitch as his team have been anaemic on it, Thomas Sorensen is an upstanding ambassador for Sunderland.

The Dane is certainly a more eloquent speaker than a posse of British-born players at clubs the length and breadth of the country that one could mention. For Sorensen, the time for excuses is well and truly over. He is not resigned to relegation. But he is becoming reconciled to the prospect.

There was a steely determination behind every word uttered by the goalkeeper at the Academy of Light on Thursday as he offered his brutal analysis of Sunderland's plight.

Sorensen is not a defeatist; he is a realist. Wilkinson, on the other hand, treated relegation in much the same way as an impoverished man would react to receiving a final demand from the gas board.

Ignore it, and it might go away, seemed to be Wilkinson's philosophy. At least McCarthy and his team are facing up to their situation. One comment from 26-year-old Sorensen seemed as apposite as anything that has been said from anyone connected with Sunderland for many a month.

"We just haven't been good enough," he said, and finally the evidence of the side's performances this season had been backed up by a player.

He added: "We need to win more games than we have over the whole season to stay up, so it's going to be hard.

"I think we're a better side than West Brom, and we'll have the chance to show that when we play them.

"But if we finish bottom, we can't say we were better than anyone else because we won't have been.

"The table doesn't lie this late in the season.

"I don't think there's any reason to ban the word 'relegation' from the dressing room. It's a reality, and I don't think we should try to escape reality. I think it's OK that people are aware of the situation we're in.

"I think we have to change our approach. From now on, we have to try to get above West Brom, and if we do that we can take it from there.

"The hope we will get out of it is still there, but we've just made it a lot more difficult for ourselves; in fact, it's near-impossible.

"We need to set ourselves a series of targets. The main one for me is still to avoid relegation, but my first target is to get above West Brom and not finish last.

"We need to be realistic and set that as our first goal because that's definitely achievable. If we did that, we could take it from there."

Sorensen is almost certain to begin next season as a Premiership player, whether Sunderland now embark on a remarkable survival mission or not.

Kevin Phillips should be able to make a similar boast come August, but many of their current clubmates would struggle to find a top-flight club willing to take them.

If Sorensen - who is coveted by Arsenal and Manchester United - does leave Sunderland, he wants to do so with his head held high.

"There's a lot more to play for than just points; there's a lot of pride at stake as well, and in my mind that means a lot," he said.

"It's very painful to be in this position. I don't play for money or anything; I play for pride and success, and for those moments where everything seems to come together.

"At the moment, those things seem far away, and I think that's the hardest bit.

"What also makes it hard to live with what's happened is we've got more or less the same players in the team.

"Obviously, some players have left and some new players have come in, but there's still me, Jody Craddock, Gavin McCann, Michael Gray, Kevin Phillips and a lot of others.

"I've always had 100 per cent belief in the team's ability and every player's ability because we haven't deteriorated as players.

"People still go to international games and show they're among the best in Europe.

"But I think psychologically, as a team, we need a run of success to get the belief back, and I think that's the most important thing.

"If I'd known the reasons why it's happened, I would have spoken up and had it corrected a year ago.

"But it's not something that one person or one player has done wrong; it's been a long process and a downward spiral.

"We all want to get out of this as soon as possible. We need to finish the season well, not just for ourselves but for the fans and the new manager.

"We don't want to be the team that goes in the record books. That's the first aim."

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