RATHER than playing the blame game as Sunderland’s Premier League status hangs on the result of the final match of the season, manager Ricky Sbragia has urged his players to fight for the club, rather than themselves.

If Sunderland defeat Chelsea at the Stadium of Light tomorrow, Sbragia will have ensured top-flight football on Wearside for a third successive season.

Failure to secure three points, however, would mean the Black Cats are in the hands of the results at the KC Stadium and Villa Park, where wins for Hull and Newcastle would send Sunderland into the Championship.

At this stage of the season, managers tend to warn their players they will be shown the door for failing to prove they are worthy of staying on.

Sbragia, though, is of a different belief, and rather than point the finger at individuals, the Sunderland boss feels the time for an inquest into the season’s failings can be put on hold until after tomorrow.

“The players are playing for Sunderland’s future; they want to be Premier League players and they’ve got to address that on Sunday,” said Sbragia.

“We’ve got a two-point cushion but we’ve still got to win on Sunday.

“There’s no-one else to blame. It’s happened over 38 games, we’ve not been consistent enough.

“We’ve had many chances to get out of this position and not taken it.

“We’ve conceded too many goals and not scored enough.

We hope we can change that in the final game.

“When I took the job we were in a sticky situation and it was my job to keep us up. I still believe we will be in the Premier League after Sunday.”

Whether keeping Sunderland up will be enough to keep him in the job remains to be seen, with Martin Jol, Steve McClaren and Slaven Bilic just three of the names touted as possible replacements.

Sbragia has not been concerned with what has been written in the last few weeks, although he has been annoyed by Sunderland’s fall down the league table.

And there is one moment during his six-month reign that keeps flashing back to him, having steered Sunderland to within sight of a Europa Cup place in his first 13 league matches in charge.

From the moment Robbie Keane struck in the 89th minute to cancel out Kieran Richardson’s opener against Tottenham on March 7, the season has gone from bad to worse.

Sunderland have dropped to within two points of the bottom three after losing seven of their last nine matches, winning just one.

“The Tottenham game annoyed me because I knew it was two vital points thrown away,” said Sbragia.

“It is difficult to get points from any team and that was three valuable ones we lost.

We would not be sitting here talking about relegation and that’s the annoying thing.

“But we are all in it together; you can’t play with one big name, we are 11 players. We bond as a team, lose as a team and win as a team.

“You want more quality to come through and that has not happened often enough.”

Provided Sunderland can secure Premier League survival tomorrow, chairman Niall Quinn has previously talked about trying to make them “relegation proof” in the future, with the financial backing of American Ellis Short.

But Sbragia said: “You can never tell.

“The focus is to keep us in the Premier League and go from there, it’s as simple as that. My only concern is Sunday.

The steps are there for this club to be successful but it takes time.

“You can’t build it overnight but you have a better chance of building a successful team if you are in the Premier League and that is what I want to do.”