Sam Allardyce targets five out of five to keep Sunderland in the Premier League

The Black Cats registered only their second shut-out of 2016 in last weekend's 3-0 victory at Norwich after also denying the opposition during the stalemate against West Brom earlier this month.

Allardyce had spent months bemoaning Sunderland's run without a clean sheet - identifying it as the main reason why the Black Cats were unable to pull away from relegation trouble.

But ahead of today's clash against Arsenal, the Sunderland boss believes that if the Black Cats can reach the end of the campaign without conceding another goal, then they will unquestionably be playing Premier League football next season.

"I hope we have a clean sheet mentality against Arsenal, because a clean sheet mentality is going to keep us in this division," said Allardyce.

"There's no doubt about that.

"We have to go for clean sheets in all five of the last five games.

"If we can do that, we'll definitely stay up because we've got a Jermain Defoe whose scored 16 goals in all competitions already.

"He's likely to score two or three during those games. That would ultimately bring us three points.

"Let's keep as many clean sheets as we can and then we'll stay in the Premier League."