The big thing they have in their favour right now is form. West Ham are in awful form, Fulham's mini resurgence just took a huge dent, Palace have been up and down, Norwich aren't winning many at all, WBA have dropped like a stone, Villa are dropping at a similar rate, the Europa league is catching up with Swansea. While Sunderland are on a nice little run right now, keeping the run going is another thing but they have plenty of winnable games coming up.