DICK ADVOCAAT has warned Sunderland’s players to forget about last Sunday’s Wear-Tyne derby heroics by focusing on preserving Premier League status within the next five matches.

The Dutch head coach has seen the Black Cats open up a three point gap to the relegation zone courtesy of the 2-0 win over Newcastle United.

And a further victory – a second in three matches under him – against Alan Pardew’s Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon would mean another huge step towards avoiding the drop.

Advocaat, who will replace suspended Seb Larsson with fit again Jack Rodwell in his midfield, is desperate to have Premier League safety assured before the final two games of the campaign.

He said: “We played Sunday, Monday was training, Tuesday was a day off and then there was nothing more on Newcastle. I told them we have to focus on the next five games so let’s do it.

“We will still have our last two games away (Arsenal and Chelsea) so ideally we have to do it in the next five games. The most important game is tomorrow, hopefully the players realise that.”

But Advocaat does accept that a repeat of the showing against the Magpies will see Sunderland stand a greater chance of achieving short term aims under his watch.

He said: “I watched the Newcastle game back and it has given the players a lot of confidence the way they performed. If they can continue to do that, it is good.

“And in training I can see it is improving too. Hopefully, we can see that tomorrow against a very difficult team.

“We have to do it week by week. It is important to win the home games because they are very important. It is better to do it by game than thinking ‘if we can do that ...’ It’s too far away.

“What I have seen is that if everyone works hard, you cannot do it on your own, if everyone works as a unit we can be successful and hopefully we still have time to achieve that.”