Sunderland captain John O'Shea reckons Norwich City's Premier League relegation rivals need a minimum of five wins to stay up this season.

The Black Cats have joined Alex Neil's squad in the Middle East for warm weather training this week, after travelling to Dubai.

Sam Allardyce's club is a point behind Norwich in the Premier League, on 23 points, prior to resuming their survival battle at West Ham on February 27. Sunderland is also poised to visit Norwich in a potentially pivotal game at Carrow Road on April 16.

O'Shea was a key figure in beating his old side Manchester United 2-1 at the Stadium of Light prior to heading to their training base in Dubai.

'We have 12 games left, we more than likely need five or six wins, so we know what it'll take,' said O'Shea. 'Ultimately now it's down to results. We had a fantastic performance against (Manchester) City recently and got zero points, then against Liverpool we were not so good and got one point. Then we had a very good performance against United and got three. We fully deserved the win.

'Hopefully it shows that, like the last few years, we're fighting really hard to stay in the Premier League.

'That's ultimately where you want to be as a player, playing in the Premier League against the top teams, and that's what we'll be aiming to do again.'