afar

The important stat would be the average points earned by the third place team, because that's all we would have to beat. Least year for example Brum finished with 83 pts in 2nd but PNE only managed to get to 74, so in theory 75 pts would have been enough for Brum. If that's the case this year 7 more wins and we are there. Of course the stats change year on year, and it's impossible to say what we'll need, this year we've got 3 teams a lot better than the rest, that's probably going to push that points target up, having said that I would find it hard to believe that 85 pts won't be enough to go up, that's 10 more wins.

He always seems to start off well but then can sustain it. It must be something to do with this managerial style perhaps it just wears thin after a while. Love to see him finish off the job and relegate those bastards

I'll echo what others have said. I've been a big critic of Ashley (or at least suspcious of him) for longer than most on this board but got to say he and Hughton (someone else I'm not too fond of) have done a great job in addressing our needs this window, it's certainly been the best window I can remember under Ashley. Fair play to them all.

Obviously we a not home and dry yet, but with a 3 point lead, with a game in hand, and a 8 point gap to the 3rd place team, if you were a neutral you would be foollish to back against us. Our own in built pessimism will not allow some of us to believe we will do, and I must admit I tend to err on the side of caution myself. But I have still to see anything in this division that makes has me panicking to hard that we'll throw away this big lead over West Brom especially. One more thing I'll add, if the board add the striker , hopefully Moses, we need they'll deserve some credit for not resting on their laurels, in the same way we didn't in 92/93 when we brought in Cole to supplement an already potent attack. They'll have done a good job this transfer window if they can secure that striker.

Why exactly ? WBA and NF just money bags, super big clubs ? Last time I checked we were top of the pile, with an average attendance of double what they get and not to mention a much superior recent record, having finished ahead of both clubs every year for the last 10 - 15 years. The only thing we should be worried about is if a big prem club come in for him. Credit where it's due, I'm not that cynical to think this is purely a PR stunt, I think there's a genuine belief they canland their man, and tbh why shouldn't they think that, Victor Moses is not Messi, Ronaldo or Rooney, he's a youngster that's done pretty well in the 2nd tier of English football.

Preston got 74 last year finishing third. we only need 20 more points to beat that now. If we win all our home games till the end of the season and lose all away games, that will bring us to 82 points just one point behind Brum's total for 2nd place last year. 8 points is a nice cushion at the moment. That's the good news, the bad news is we appear to be really struggling right now, Palace were there for the taking but going by the stats and reading what others have said on here, sounds like we were a little fortunate to even win this one. They have to pick up and the injuries especially to our backline could come back to kill us. Of all the players to lose Jose was the last one we needed.

Since I'm just stuck with just the BBC's text commentary and stats page. Looks like a pretty even game, outside of posession that we've dominated, Palace have had more shots on target than us. Pretty shocking really under the circumstances, we should be putting teams like Palace with everything that's going on there right now, under. And to top it off we've lost our best player, potentially for a long period.

Not a must win game in terms of league position, but I think it's very much a must win in terms of momentum. We've stumbled a bit, Forest are on fire and West Brom are still there, we must win tonight to get the confidence back a bit and set ourselves up for 2 difficult games coming up, we'll do well to get a result at Leicester and Cardiff are on a great run too.

Just got home from work and saw the forest result. Got to say that's damn impressive, they are on fire right now, also a little worried about Cardiff, they seem to have put some damn good results together and could be dark horse. The smoggies got a great result too tonight, not too worried about them but if they start hitting form they could be a danger in the playoffs if that is our fate. West Brom result was a good one though, they would have expected to win that one, now if we do the business against Palace we'll move 8 points clear of them, if we lose of course we'll drop down to 2nd

I feel for the fans but there are just too many London clubs, one fewer in the top two divisions does no one any harm.

i saw that waynes good game for us. I think I did too, I remember this old boy shouting at him all game to "pin his ears back, and run like the wind, son".

Well I hope he's a little more succesful here than the last Wayne, we signed to play right wing from QPR.

He did. I was at that game, we played really well that day and announced our arrival in the premiership, we hadn't started too well that season, lost to both Spuds and Coventry, but this game started the wheels in motion. Nicky's ball to cole was inch perfect. Think he fell out with KK over something because he kind of disappeared at some point in that season.

That would break the club if it happens, we simply can not afford not get promotion this year.

He wasn't really being pissed around was he ? He was working his job as a first team coach, kept his job despite various changes in manager, still drew a nice salary and would have been compensated for "working up" in the caretaker manager posts he took. After his performances in the caretaker role he was extremely fortunate to still be around the club, the man was abysmal even if you factor in the turmoil around. I wish people would stop with the thought process that Hughton somehow was mistreated or has done us some sort of favour by hanging around, the man was bloody lucky to hang onto his job let alone get a bloody promotion.

I don't like Hughton as our manager because he's not a manager and never will be, as a person I'd give him 10 out of 10, as a manager I'd struggle to give him 5 out of 10. I haven't seen a single thing to make me change my mind on him and at this stage I can't see that changing. As for Monday, the problem was that we had a midfield of snail paced plodders and that's the way we played again today. We have absolutely no creativity and that has been the case for most of the season and I can't see that taking a turn for the better because it doesn't look like were even looking to change anything by bringing in new blood. Guthrie being quiet for 45 minutes proves nothing, I don't think anybody played well in the first half and the game only changed when we switched to 4-4-2 and had a go at them. I'll give him credit for making the change at half time, I'll not give him any credit for the way he set us up before that, him changing things at half time only balances out the original mistake. We can get away with players like Smith, Butt and Nolan against most teams in the Championship but not against the more mobile teams. The point I've highlighted makes no sense at all. The only central midfielders we have at the club are snail-paced plodders at best, so what else is Hughton exactly meant to do? His hands are pretty much tied in the transfer market, how many decent pacey central midfielders are you meant to get for £1m? I would have done the same thing if I was manager, I would have started the game by sticking in an extra midfielder, as we got butchered there on Monday night and need another player there to make up for the total lack of pace and awareness in that area. Funny also that you mention the lack of creativity in the side, we managed to create two goals today, create two occasions where we should have had penalties, along with a few times shots were saved for corners on top of that. Hughton is being made a fall guy for every single bastarding thing going wrong with this club. People accuse him of having no balls, but the fact the man has gone about his business with an air of dignity and done his ruddy hardest to get the team to the summit of the division suggests otherwise. The way he's been treated by Ashley is absolutely rotten, and the fact that loads of the fans seem to get on his back when the slightest thing goes wrong (even when we win but play badly, ffs!) is utterly pathetic. It may be obvious to some that I'm a Hughton sympathiser, but the attitudes of some (not just you, Mick) are starting to piss me off. We didn't lose the game because of Hughton today, that much is pretty much certain. It's 2-1, we have a second stonewall penalty turned down, and then at the other end a penalty is given the other way. What's to say that we score the penalty and go on to win the game? Hughton is a hero in that situation for turning the game around, when he hasn't done anything differently. The referee and one of the linesmen are the number one reasons why we lost today's game. How? By offering him the manager's job? A man with the CV of Chirs Hughton is incredibly fortunate to be managing a club of even our current stature in the game.

Against WBA in the first game, we more than held our own. Second game in the league they knocked it around better than us for sure but we had the chances to win that game and as someone else said but for a awful ref we probably would have. Today we've been pissed on largely, but also terribly unlucky with the ref being a huge homer by the sounds of it. Against forest we were horrible in the first half and they scored a goal. 2nd half they were hanging on, I was very unimpressed with them in that game, surprised at the run they've gone on since then. Things are changing for Forest, they are no longer the surprise package now, they'll be going into games expected to win and the other teams will raise their games to play them, lets see how they cope with that, I'm not convinced they'll be able to sustain this run of form.

8 weeks would kill us, there's a butt load of games in that period, key to our success in the league has been the partnership with Taylor and Colo, I fear for us without him.

I've consistently made my view clear about Hughton. But we are stuck with him right now. This is the point where he needs to come through and prove us wrong. We are on the verge of collapse at the moment, we have to bounce back now with wins, 3 or 4 off the trot otherwise, momentum and form will be with Forest and WBA. First thing he needs to do, is bloody stand up for himself to Ashley and demand that he gets some bloody backing in the transfer window, without it we could very well be screwed.

Sounds like we are getting served here. It might be the cup and doesn't really matter but to get this well beaten by one of our rivals will have a negative impact on our confidence, does not go well for the rest of the season. Don't understand the team selection at all, I would have picked 11 reserves, this is a pretty strong team, and West Brom have just pissed on us big time.

I think Bent is the only thing keeping Sunderland away from the relegation battle, not that I wish injury on any player, but here's hoping

The danger though is that if we don't speculate to go up this year that we'll be stuck down in the championship for a number of years. If we dont go up this year we will lose: Enrique, Jonas, S Taylor, Colo, Nolan, Carroll and possibly Smith, Loven and Harper. There will be bidders on all those players. At the same time the exodus will mean we have to hang onto Butt, simply to make up the numbers !! Do we trust Hughton and Ashley to replace that lot with players capable of winning promotion, I know I don't. This year for the club is make it or break it, if we don't go up we could very well plummet down like Leeds did. This all means that we simply have to think short term to ensure we make the signings we need to get back up.

I have to agree with this. My knowledge of Championship players is embarrasingly poor, I have no clue who Mike Whatseverhisname or had much of a clue who Kilgallon was before we were linked with him, so I'm not exactly well informed. But the only time I saw him play against us, I was completely underwhelmed.

I'm not sure I agree that we were lucky to get a point last night. Yes West Brom looked a lot betteer than us, knocked it around much better. While we were awkward in posession and not in any shape as fluid as them. Having said that we created enough chances to win it, yes Miller missed an absolute sitter but we had, Carson make a great save in the last minute from Taylor FK, Jonas screw up the final ball when a goal looked odds on, A terrible off side call on Lovenkrands that would have left him 1 on 1 with the keeper, along with at least 2 blatant penalty shouts turned down. As I said West Brom did look good, the best side we've faced all year, but they were also cynical and have their problems at the back where they do not look convincing. I do't think we were lucky at all to get a point, a point was probably a fair result for the night but we would not have been lucky had we even won it in the end.

Sad to see the end of Addidas link up tbh. They are a quality brand, along with Nike the best sports brand in the world. The for me made our best ever kit in 95/96 coupled with that great away kit. Although I do agree with the comment that their recent efforts have been somewhat lazy. Puma are a decent brand too, I'm sure they produce a nice kit, it makes sense for new kit manufactures to put the effort into producing a good first kit. Newcastle is a great land for them, one of the largest supporter bases in the country who tend to spend a lot of money on replica kits, also after being with the same manufacturer for over 15 years they will get a lot of trade from people ready for a change, great TV exposure for their brand too.