Sunderland boss David Moyes has made clear that he is "only interested in how we do" in the wake of his side's demoralising 3-0 defeat to the previously bottom placed Swansea City last Saturday.
Moyes fully focused on his own team's fortunes
Of course, Moyes' men have now taken the place of the Swans, but with 23 games left to play and just two points separating the Black Cats and 17th-placed West Ham - the Scot says he has "got an idea of how many" he needs to win in order to keep the club in the top-flight.
"Overall what other teams do, I can't do anything about," Moyes told the Shields Gazette.
His side had hoped to make it four wins from five in Wales before a Gylfi Sigurdsson penalty and a brace from Fernando Llorente dashed those hopes in the second-half.
Moyes added that being at the foot of the Premier League table is "not something new at the moment" given Sunderland's astonishingly poor start to the campaign, which has showed signs of improving over the last month or so with wins against Bournemouth, Hull and Leicester City.
Swansea defeat a setback for Black Cats - but the gap in the bottom half is still closing
Those three victories had moved Sunderland up to 18th place prior to Saturday's defeat, and the fact that the gap that once seperated the Wearsiders from the rest of the division is beginning to narrow is a major positive for Moyes.
"A few weeks ago we weren't in it" said the Black Cats boss, who also stressed that the important thing for his players now is to "get on with what's next" with two games coming up this week.
The manager was anything but happy with his side's sub-par performance against Swansea however, and admitted that Sunderland simply "weren't good enough" and outlined that staying up may mean that "we probably need to go on a good run maybe two or three times this season".
The hectic Premier League schedule in December is now beginning to get underway, and Sunderland will face Chelsea on Wednesday as well as Watford on Saturday with both matches being held at the Stadium of Light as the club look to push away from the relegation zone over Christmas.