Clarets legend Jimmy McIlroy has called for the play-off winning heroes to become survival superheroes.

Burnley bid to bridge a four-point gap from safety at Sunderland this afternoon, yet with just four games of their debut Premier League season remaining are dependent on rival teams slipping up, as well as their own results, to stay up.

The size of the task is not lost on McIlroy, who was awarded the Freedom of the Borough early last year for his role in the Clarets being crowned champions of England in 1960, and is about to mark the end of his testimonial year.

But the former Northern Ireland international, regarded as the greatest ever Claret, has urged them to keep believing.

“We have to face the fact that we are in an awful position and it will take a miracle to survive. But for them to reach the Premier League was something I classed as a miracle, so we have to hope it’s possible to get two in a row.

“They will be super heroes if they can stay up!” said former inside forward McIlroy.

“All I can tell them to do is play their hearts out and who knows what will happen?

“They know how tough it is. Everyone knows how tough it will be. But if the lads give their all in the last few games we can’t ask any more of them.

“We are looking for every break we can get.

“No doubt the win at Hull will have given their confidence a boost.

“That first away win was always going to. And if we believe in miracles they can produce one.”

Burnley boss Brian Laws believes his Clarets discovered the recipe for success at the KC Stadium last week, and is optimistic going into today’s game at the Stadium of Light after a good week on the training ground.

“They have spoken more positively since that win than they have since I’ve been here,” he said.

“That just shows you how a win can lift you.

“They’re buying into what they have to do and now we have to get out there and reproduce it.

“They say football is do-or-die. Too right it is. It’s what we live for each day that goes by. Your wins, when they come, give a real different feeling.

“We know what the ingredients are. I’m not going to leave us wide open and say what they were.

“When you bake a cake and miss out the main ingredients you’re going to have a bad cake. We had a bad performance against Manchester City.

“We had to really look at ourselves because that was the most disappointing performance probably of the season because we didn’t turn up at all against a very good side.

“Even though they went and smashed five past Birmingham, it didn’t give me any comfort that they scored another five goals against one of the tightest defences in the league, because ours was a poor performance. End of story. We didn’t work hard enough. The difference in the Hull game was that we did.

“We worked a lot harder as a team and individually.

“You can’t substitute hard work, and that’s the biggest ingredient.”