Paullow

Poor Stoke. Preston with a very, very late winner.

With Steve Bruce: P13 W1 D8 L4 PTS 11 Without Steve Bruce: P13 W9 D0 L4 PTS 27

7 clean sheets in those 9 matches as well, only 2 goals conceded, both pens.

Watford ahead, probably jumping from 9th to 4th in the live league table Just about deserved.

It's so strange. WBA would usually be fairly irrelevant to me, unless both competing for survival or promotion, but I've gone from wanting them to lose every week to hoping they win in the space of 2 months

0-2 now, oh and WBA ahead!

Boro ahead at Birmingham. Not many goals in the Championship today.

I went to have a quick look on their forum to see if I could find out more, and then spent the best part of 10 minutes reading this thread - https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/307039/losing-love-stoke Just switched the match on the red button during half time of the man Sky match, and the crowd doesn't come across great visually and a lot of empty seats. It's a strange situation. You'd probably say they should probably be where they ought to be historically, but then after 10 years or so in the PL they basically skipped the challenging back to potentially yo-yo part and have been lower mid table pretty much since they dropped, and will likely feel a mile away from when they were midtable in the top flight for a while, and in a cup final.

Big win for Darlington away at Scarborough, 2-5, to go top of the National North (although Kings Lynn have 3 games in hand on them). That was a regular football league match in my early days, but obviously both have had really tough times these past 20 years, and have been much lower down the pyramid in recent years, but good to see both in promotion contention.

Shite. They never know when they're beaten, to be fair to them. Atmosphere has understandably gone as flat as a fart.

I was talking about becoming a regular top 6 team, whether that be 4th, 5th, 6th, and not a team that will have one good season, but then could easily finish 11th or 12th the next season and nobody would really bat an eye lid. Most of the top 6 clubs have had seasons outside the top 6 over the past 13 years or so to make way for West Ham having one season there, Leicester having 3, Everton maybe once or twice, us under Pardew - Chelsea have finished 10th, Arsenal and Liverpool 8th, Man Utd and Spurs 7th etc. but near enough 9 times out of 10, as individual clubs, they will finish in the top 6, and be expected to at the start of the season, but soon I don't think that will be the case, and someone like say Spurs in a couple of years will be 7th favourites in the title odds, or top 6, or top 4 odds at the start of the season, and they won't be used to that. Obviously finishing in the top 4 this season will be much more significant and powerful, but given the hype of the takeover, and away fans expectations, I genuinely believe if we finish in the top 6 this season then that will be a statement of intent, and the one or two 'big' clubs we finish above will be concerned about their potential standing in the English game going forward.

Yeah, but this would be a bit different and those sides wouldn't have been expected to at the start of the season and more a case of them over performing and one or two big 6 sides not doing so. The top 6 know that eventually we are coming, and once we do, we'll very likely stay there, whereas there was more chance the other no tradition big 6 sides would quickly fall away. Our pre season title odds were in line with the likes of Arsenal and Spurs and miles clear of 8th favourites Leicester, and if we get top 6 this season, and continue to go about our business, I'm not sure we'll ever see 6 teams deemed more likely to win the league than us for as long as the Saudi's are here. Finishing top 6, even 6th, this season would be a massive statement of intent at this stage of our 'project'.

Lens are having a cracking season, would go only 4 points behind PSG if they were to win today. They've won all 8 league matches at home thus far, and have even conceded less than Eddie's Mags (10 in 16), although that could change after tonight. Edit - seemingly changed before I pressed send.

Tomorrow's TV schedule on Sky looks decent: 12.30pm - Rangers vs Celtic 3pm - Norwich vs Watford, both currently just outside the playoffs, but it's so congested that the winner could go 4th 5.30pm - Brentford vs Liverpool 8pm - QPR vs Sheff Utd Probably be sat on the sofa all day

Come on Forest. A win would be lovely, but I'd take a draw all day long. I like them and hope they stay up.

Forgot they were playing, but Drogba has equalised for Sunderland against Blackpool. 20 mins left, but they look well on top judging by the stats so will probably go on to win it.

Obviously a fair few on here don't like them, but if Villa continue to improve and strengthen then it can only be good for the PL generally - soon pretty much every game week there'll be a 'big' / intriguing fixture to look forward to, and less seemingly foregone conclusions. I'm just pleased we've got our house in order as if we were still under Bruce and Ashley battling for 14-17th every season then I would have been jealous of what they might have going on there

I'd make Liverpool and Man Utd favourites for top 4 (assuming 2 spots have gone), but if we can finish above one, or both, of Spurs and Chelsea then that would be fantastic. I'll still hope that the aforementioned former 2 drop points while we're very much in contention, but definitely have more eyes on those two London clubs results at the moment. Impressive turnaround by Villa - just shows what an upgraded manager can do.

The Trippier confusion is due to the yellow card he picked up against Bournemouth in the League Cup, but yellows in that competition don't count towards the league, so he is fine to play against Arsenal, although presumably (like Schaar) now one booking away from a PL suspension (not sure when the 5 PL yellow card expiry date is).

I expect a defeat, but wouldn't it be fantastic if we could repeat that 1-3 win in December 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/1711251.stm https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/premier-league/18-december-2001/ We've actually got more points this season from our 17 games, and a much better GD (scored more, conceded less) then when we went top of the league on that great evening.

Wow 3-4.

That's the end of 2022 for Newcastle United. A year that started poorly with that shock FA Cup defeat, and then late dropped points at home to Watford, but what a year overall: 21 wins, only 6 defeats, exactly 2 points per game. Only 31 goals conceded, and 13 of those were in 3 games, so just 18 in the other 33. 16 clean sheets, and amazingly, only conceded more than one goal 4 times (Man City x 2, Liverpool and Spurs). Quite astonishing stats really. Oh, and a winnable home cup QF to come as well.

I was ill last year on NYE and remember browsing the transfer section on here late on with all the talk of Trippier etc. I was trying to dig out the thread from this time last year, but can't find it, only this one below from Jan 9th and no permission to view the previous edition, but aye, it would certainly be interesting to read that back and see how far we have come in such a short period of time. I guess the last time we drew at home to Leeds about 15 months ago, I wouldn't have even really cared about the result.

I guess if, this time last week, someone had offered me 4 points and 2 clean sheets over the next couple of matches, I'd have taken it - I would have just assumed it would have been the other way round and a battling point at Leicester. Undoubtedly 2 points dropped, and the first disappointing result since mid September, but it's still 26 points from 30 in a period which included trips to Man Utd and Spurs and a home match with Chelsea.

To be honest, and not just a reaction after dropped points today, I'd probably rather Arsenal won than Brighton. If we can finish 4th that would be an amazing achievement, top 6 would be fantastic as well considering we'd have finished above at least one of the more established sides, which would be great this early in our resurgence. If Brighton won today and their other game in hand (Palace), they'd just be 4 points behind us.