The 30-year-old Republic of Ireland international ended a 13-year stay at Old Trafford when he agreed to become part of Steve Bruce's mission to bring success to Wearside. However, like former United team-mate Wes Brown, who made the same journey this summer, he remains hugely ambitious despite the five Premier League titles, FA Cup winners' medal, three League Cup successes and the Champions League triumph he brought with him. O'Shea said: "That's definitely not going to be the case from my point of view, going on Easy Street after being so successful through my career. "Something like that wouldn't even enter my mind. "The club wants to build with slow, steady progress, and if we can do that improving on the finish in the league last season and hopefully getting further in the cups, that will be the case and we will keep on improving." O'Shea had become part of the fixtures and fittings at United after establishing himself as a dependable performer in a variety of positions for manager Sir Alex Ferguson. But he knew the time was right to move on this summer after the Scot told him what the future might hold for him if he stayed. The defender said: "I had been at United my whole career and I had always said the manager would decide when my time was up at Old Trafford. "He just spoke to me about maybe he wouldn't be able to promise me as many games as he had done in the seasons gone by. "I had just turned 30 as well, so it was time to get playing week in and week out and come to a fantastic club like Sunderland, so all the ingredients felt right." Frustratingly for O'Shea, he had to wait to make his competitive debut for the club at Swansea last time out after damaging a hamstring in pre-season which cost him five weeks on the sidelines. Having played at the Liberty Stadium, he headed off on international duty, but emerged from Ireland's 0-0 draw with Slovakia with calf and hip strains and missed Tuesday night's gutsy goalless draw in Russia. He will also sit out this weekend's Premier League clash with old foes Chelsea, and while that is a major source of frustration, he is expecting the latest hiatus to be brief. O'Shea said: "That's the frustrating part. That's when you see the best of all footballers after they have had pre-season when they play five, six, seven games and you get the confidence flowing and you feel strong. "You go into games and you are looking forward to it, so fingers crossed it will be sooner rather than later that that happens." Sunderland will welcome the Blues to the north-east having endured a stuttering start to the campaign which has seen them collect just two points from their first three league games and bow out of the Carling Cup at League One Brighton. Goals too have been at a premium - they have scored just once - but O'Shea is confident they could have found a solution with deadline-day loan signing Nicklas Bendtner having scored a double in Denmark's 2-0 win over Norway on Tuesday night. O'Shea said: "Even before Nicklas came, in the games we played, we had created many chances. The worrying point would be maybe if we weren't creating chances and were finding it difficult to create them. "If we keep creating those chances, it will definitely turn and fingers crossed, it does against Chelsea. "But Nicklas is a player with a lot of ability and you saw with his two international goals during the week that if we can just get him playing week in, week out and get his confidence up, he will be a fantastic asset to Sunderland."
