DEAN WHITEHEAD has already accepted there will be comings and goings at Sunderland before next season and is determined to make sure he is not one of them.

Relegation back to the Football League may not be a certainty just yet but there is a grim acceptance that their Premiership status will be relinquished well before the final ball has been kicked in May.

Manager Mick McCarthy has shown by his selections in recent weeks how he is already preparing for life next season by handing the players likely to be around the chance to shine.

And as the likes of Grant Leadbitter and Martin Woods gain valuable experience, loan signings Justin Hoyte and Anthony le Tallec have been forced to take a back-seat, despite being fully fit.

Whitehead, one of the few Sunderland men to have shown glimpses that he has the potential to adapt to life in the top league, is sure to attract attention from clubs in the summer.

But the 24-year-old, plucked from the lower leagues with Oxford less than two years ago by McCarthy, is not about to go shouting his mouth off and talk up his chances of leaving in the close-season.

Instead Whitehead has told his team-mates to focus on showing the manager that they deserve to be retained for a campaign back in the Championship come August, something he is aiming to do.

"The manager is chopping and changing things a lot at the moment, but that's no surprise when we're in the situation we're in," said Whitehead, knowing Sunderland are some 16 points shy of safety with 12 games remaining. "We're still not picking up enough points and there are people who are playing well in the reserves who deserve an opportunity.

"I don't know whether the manager is taking a look at all his players because he wants to decide whether to keep them or not in the summer, but he will certainly have one eye on that I'd imagine.

"We've got to play to make sure we keep hold of this shirt next season.

"There are going to be changes in the summer because we've not done well enough. There will be people coming in and people going out, it's up to us to prove we should stay."

Despite slipping to a 20th league defeat from 26 matches at Blackburn on Wednesday night, the players could not be faulted for attitude.

In fact, apart from on a couple of occasions, as in home defeats to Portsmouth and Middlesbrough, McCarthy has rarely been able to question his squad's desire during a season of depression for everyone associated with the club.

Although Sunderland have been unable to compete at the highest level in English football in terms of results, Whitehead is convinced there has hardly been a game when there has looked a massive difference in class between them and their opponents.

"There is no way any of us are going through the motions," said Whitehead. "For those fans who travelled to Blackburn, I don't think anyone left saying we hadn't tried.

"We have to beat that 19-point target (the total achieved when Sunderland suffered relegation three years ago), that's the minimum target we have, but we need the fans to stay behind us to do that. It has been difficult to keep going, but we've got to. We've got to stick together."

Sunderland have failed to win any of their league matches at the Stadium of Light this season and have more respite, in theory, when they travel to Birmingham a week today.

The Blues currently occupy the third and final relegation spot and sit ten points above Sunderland, meaning defeat for McCarthy's men and the trapdoor to the Championship would open that little wider.

Whitehead feels a failure to keep things tight at the back at St Andrews would see Sunderland staring another loss in the face.

"It was the same old story at Blackburn. We hadchances and then they went up the other end and scored," he said.

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