John O'Shea claimed boss Martin O'Neill was the inspiration for Sunderland's battling 1-0 win over Premier League leaders Manchester City. O'Shea told Sky Sports 1: "To be fair to City they're a great team and they had a lot of chances, but as a unit we were great today.

"Credit has to go to the manager for giving us that bit of belief to say that we weren't going to lose this game, and he did that at half-time.

"He said, 'We don't want to lose this game 1-0 and people say we did okay, we kept them quiet'."

O'Shea, a former Manchester United player, was pleased to do his old side a favour.

He said: "They had a disappointing result yesterday and this will have cheered that up a bit, but more importantly for us it's a fantastic result. The way the lads played showed the character we have in the team and we have to take that forward now."

 Click here to reach the No1 destination for hard news and exciting gossip on Sunderland