DANNY COLLINS wants Sunderland to stay in control of their own destiny at the Stadium of Light tomorrow or risk being distracted by the reactions of supporters in the stands.

With victory required against Chelsea to keep Sunderland in the Premier League, anxious fans will be tuned into events around the country in the hope that other results go their way.

And with nerves likely to work their way on to the pitch if it emerges Newcastle and Hull are winning their respective matches, Collins is keen to guard against such a scenario.

“It’s in our own hands, that’s been the case for a few weeks now. We’ve been thinking ‘Get three points and we’re safe’,” said the defender.

“It’s still in our hands.

We’re top of that group of teams (under threat of relegation) and we know that if we can get a result at the weekend we’re safe.

“It’s a big game, whoever we’d have been playing. If we’re not up for it there’s something wrong with us. We know if we get out there, the crowd get behind us and we start with a good tempo, we’ll be OK.

“Hopefully we’ll get a result and let the other teams take care of themselves. If we don’t it will obviously be a bit tense out there, there’ll be a few signs coming in from the crowd about how other results are going. Hopefully we won’t have to rely on that.”

Having endured the trauma of relegation to the Championship in 2006, Collins never felt it would come down to this again after promotion was clinched under the management of Roy Keane a year later.

And aware of the huge investment, amounting to around £80m, in the squad over the last couple of years, Collins feels Sunderland should have been safe weeks ago.

In an ideal world, tomorrow’s match would have had more glorious honours riding on it than avoiding relegation, alt h o u g h Collins admits just being clear of the bottom three would have been enough.

“It’d be nice to be playing in a game going for the title, or for a E u r o p e a n place,” said C o l l i n s , right.

“If you asked the lads they’d probably take Wigan or West Ham’s place now, sitting in midtable.

“But at least you can sort of say we’ve got something to play for at the end of the season.

“It’s going to be a nervous time waiting for the game to come around, where we’d perhaps like it to be Saturday, get it done and out of the way and move on.”

Despite claims from Kenwyne Jones this week that suggested the striker would think about leaving if Championship football fell on the club, Collins insists there is a collective determination to get the job done.

“We’ve got some vocal characters, everyone’s different,”

he said.

“Kenwyne’s quite lively, we’ve got characters who keep the other lads going.

“When you have a defeat like we had at Portsmouth on Monday, the lads can be a bit flat, but once you put it behind you on the training pitch, work hard out there, you’ve just got to look forward to the next game.

“That’s how football is these days, you can’t dwell on a result too long.”

■ England midfielder Frank Lampard has become the first Chelsea star to win the club’s Player of the Year award for the third time.

Lampard, who won the title in 2004 and 2005, was again voted the leading performer over the season by the fans.

Lampard received the trophy from interim coach Guus Hiddink and went one better than John Hollins, Charlie Cooke, Ray Wilkins, David Webb, John Terry, Dennis Wise and Gianfranco Zola with his third win.

He said: “It’s great because of the amount of top-quality players who have won it.”