Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill is fully aware that his Black Cats side could drop into the relegation zone, according to Goal.com.

The North East club dropped to a 3-1 defeat against Queens Park Rangers yesterday, despite initially taking the lead through Steven Fletcher at Loftus Road.

Loic Remy, Andros Townsend and Jermaine Jenas all netted to secure three points for the West London club, a result which leaves Sunderland six points above the relegation zone in 14^th place.

With difficult games against Manchester United, Chelsea and the improving Newcastle United to come, the Black Cats could soon find themselves dropping closer to the bottom three places.

Sunderland had a strong start to the Premier League season, with Fletcher showing impressive form to lift the club into the top half of the table.

Win

However, with just one win in their last eight league games, Sunderland have dropped closer to the relegation battle.

O’Neill has admitted he is fully aware of the relegation threat and has pointed to next week’s league clash with Norwich City as a big game.

“It’s a tough old set of fixtures for us between now and the end of the season, we need to get some points on the board,” the former Aston Villa boss said.

“The players in the dressing room are disappointed but we’re looking to respond as we have done before. It’s a big game next week.

“It was always going to be a difficult game [QPR] for us” O’Neill continued.

“QPR were buoyed by their win over Southampton last week and we had to counteract that and deal with the swell of euphoria from the crowd, which I thought we did well.

“We put ourselves in front and it’s a wonder goal from them to take the game to 2-1.”