afar

Looking at the table right now, hard to see anyone outside the top 12, down to Birmingham making the playoffs, that does not include Villa who would have to climb above a bunch of teams and also make up 13 points now !! Think auto promotion is between the top 5, the 11 point gap to Sheff Wed is too much for them I think to get involved.

Made me eat my words over recent weeks, a huge part of our team atm.

Probably 9 more wins now needed, I don't think there has ever been a time when a team accumulated 89 points and didn't go up, so pretty safe bet. Brighton have a big game themselves tomorrow, if they lose again, last season's choke from them is in play again for sure.

Didn't even realise this was on TV, I listened to it and it sounded awful but vital 3 points. With Reading dropping points too, good day for us.

If Rafa were to leave, we should be straight on the phone to Huddersfield

I'm dreading this, has the tried and trusted "old crappy manager comes back to the club that sacked him and wins" warning signs. You know he's going to play a negative counter attacking style against us, that's just the type of style we have had the most trouble against. Huge, huge, game for us, a win is essential in my view with the up coming fixtures.

Scary that there are a few teams really starting to fire right now, Leeds, Reading, Derby, Sheff Wed and of course Huddersfield. Brighton and ourselves should be worried despite the gap. Villa will have a tough time to even make the playoffs, if us and them don't go up and Sunderland and the current PL champions drop, it's going to be an even tougher division to get out of than this year.

12 shots to 2, I can't see the game but it looks pretty one sided but Brighton still in touch and they've won these kind of games all season long.

I wonder if there has been any plans at all made for the possibility that we may still be playing champ football next season, think the whole club has assumed that we will get promotion, if not surely more players in the Danny Murphy mold would have been brought in to try to get us there. Rafa surely will be gone if we don't go up, probably of his own accord. The squad will need another major makeover, Anita and Gouf's contracts will not be renewed, Ritchie, Shelvey and Gayle will be wowed by PL clubs, Krul, Mbemba and Mitro are as good as gone in the summer anyway, Hayden may have drawn a few suitors too. We really are built for getting up this season and if it doesn't happen honestly worry where this club will be for the next decade or so.

Yep, we need to stay in touch with Brighton, last year they choked, got to hope for the same thing again.

The ability to get results when you don't play well, Brighton have that in abundance we lack it and that's the difference between the two teams right now. if Brighton win this, not much will stop them this season, this is as tough a fixture as you can get at the minute.

We should be doing better than we are right now, we should have enough quality despite the glaring weakness to not be having to look over our shoulder as we are at the minute. That's down to the coah, I love Rafa, but at the moment for me he's only a B+ for the season as a whole. If he fails to get us up with the players available to us it will be a huge failure and probably a could be career suicide for him, at least in England. for a coach who puts huge stock on defending and structure, it's not be anywhere good enough over the last month or so, he and the team need to improve because the teams around us are winning the games where they don't play well in, a knack we just don't seem to have.

The whole back four was dreadful last night, no excuse for the constant mistakes and squandering possession, both their goals were down to our errors. Lascelles needs to improve, Clark put in his worst performance since he joined (thought when he got his cut in the first half we should have just sent Hanley on, maybe we don't score an own goal in the 90th minute, who knows). Dummet was dreadful once more, Lazaar must look woeful in training if he can't get past Dummet. Yedlin was his usual self, good going forward but worries you at times defending. I would like to see Mbemba return but hopefully in better form than when he left the first choice team, because he deserved to be dropped when he was.

They got a great result in midweek but back to the bottom with everyone else picking up something, they need to start building some momentum before it's too late, but we could still have the derbies back next year only trouble is it's more likely that they'll be in the Champ than the PL.

It's a shame this window has brought this guy to the fore once more. I honestly believe we are in a better place as a club, when Ashley's name is not being discussed, it means in my view that he's doing his job. He and his whole staff let the team and fans down in January, on the evidence of last night, could have major repercussions.

I'm at a 7, it's still highly unlikely that we will throw this all away, but you can definitely see it happening.

Can't afford to drop these points, bad performance by a lot of players, this team is sleepwalking right now, we are in danger of imploding, lack of activity in January is going to bite us in the bum I feel.

Pathetic showing so far, lucky to be level.

If Shelvey gets injured or another long ban, I'm down to about a 6 or 7, right now though even without improvements, it's still around 8 to 9, Reading flying atm and Brighton just relentless.

If we don't go up now, this inactivity will have played a huge part, I really don't understand surely there were at least a few PL kids needing exp that would have been better in our squad than Colback ond Gouf ? Terrible job by everyone connected with the club.

If they sneak into the playoffs and we drop into 3rd or so, they are very much a rival and Bruce has a stellar record in the playoffs, I wouldn't back us, especially if any game goes to a penalty shootout because we seem incapable of scoring in those.

Hugely disappointing window, if it as appears to be the case, closes without us adding to the squad. Look back at our last two promotions and the signing of players during the season, 92/93 (when no transfer windows) Lee, Cole and Sellars were key to us going up. Routledge and Williamson the last time helped us pull away. Would we have gone up without those signings back then ? Probably, but the secured it, I just don't see why we haven't done so again this year. We are only one injury to Shelvey away from being a downright average team in this league, as we showed during his ban.

We seem crap penalties this season for some reason, the miss obviously hugely impacted the result, going to 1-1, I would have hoped we have gotten a better result had we gone level.

It's clear that us older folks are more cynical/pessimistic that the younger brigade, we've been through it before with the club and know never to expect anything. You're all gonna have to bear with us we'll eventually catch up.

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/sunderland-fa-youth-cup-highlights Our number 7 Wilson, looks like a player from these highlights. Keeper looks the part too and McNall took the winner well, should have had at least a hatrick.