Paullow

Looking grim for Blyth Spartan, lost 3-1 away at Hebburn in front of 660. 11 points off safety and unless there's significant changes somewhere, pretty much nailed on for a second successive. relegation Heaton continuing to struggle in tier 8, but a great win for Ashington. With 4 going down this season, it will probably be hard for both of them to stay up. Consett moving in the right direction. Not sure what's going on at Redcar Athletic in tier 9. They were well fancied and absolutely flying at the start of the season, but they've lost 4 of their last 5 league matches, as well as 2 recent cup exits, and suddenly that league is looking tight. Could still get a Blyth derby in tier 8 next season, but Blyth Town were battered 0-5 at home to Shildon today, and Blyth are also not in great form with only 5 points from their last 6.

They still managed to get 23 points from their final 23 games last season, so even if they had another mega marra mackem meltdown they would still probably just about sneak into them, but here's hoping.

Extremely likely they will get at least a playoff spot now. It's usually around 70 points for 6th place, so they'll only really need to average not much more than a point per game in their final 24 matches to get there, but at least there's a few other sides doing well, and if they did finish 3rd to 6th then more chance than not they wouldn't come up.

Up the Cumbrians though.

Good start to this Palace Arsenal game. 1-1, no idea what result I'd prefer

This would be City's 6th defeat in 8 league games, and annoyingly for us, 4 of those have come against Man Utd, Villa, Tottenham and Brighton, probably the 4 teams we will be sharing 5-9th place with. Could probably just about add Bournemouth to that list as well.

Not if we're 4-0 down from the away leg without Schaar and Bruno. Could argue it would be better to get the home leg first in this instance.

I'm not fussed about this draw to be honest. There's not an obvious more difficult draw IMO. You'd probably say Spurs would just about be easier, but that was probably the worst we played against all 3 of them at home this season, and another day could have been a heavy defeat. Plus I haven't looked at the schedule, but Spurs will probably be taking it the most serious of the 3. There's also no obvious advantage of playing home or away first. You'd usually like to play away first and then have the 2nd leg at home, but if there's no ET then that negates that, although pens would be more beneficial, but in our case, without Bruno and Fab, we could well be 2 or 3-0 down from the away leg and the tie effectively over before they are back, whereas it might be better to lose them for the SJP match and then have them back with a more poised first leg. 2 years ago you had Southampton (who we obviously got) and last year Middlesbrough made the semi final, who most would have liked, but this year, there's not an obvious tie you'd like to get.

The crowd may well be shite, but the coverage won't help. It just feels well off and well out of sync. Good that it's being covered, but very much the short straw tonight.

It's good that it's at least on TV, but you can tell it's a budget service. Felt like it took an age for them to realise it went in. Doesn't feel fully in sync.

I always think this, but it probably would have been better for Martin to have lost the playoff final to Leeds last season. They'd be winning more games, towards the top of the table, playing good football and probably under minimal pressure - doubt he would have got much of a pay rise either, but as it is, much tougher job, always likely to be in and around the bottom 3/4, and under constant pressure and scrutiny.

Darren Fletcher getting sacked for mentioning the darts on Sky

FFS, 40 seconds . Had barely turned it over.

Fulham are obviously having a decent season, and a loss there is far from a disgrace, but you can add that loss in as well, since it's within that period. 2 points from them 4 games is very poor, especially as in the previous 6 they had won 4 and the only defeat was at Anfield, and they would have been looking to push on further with those games - they would have been thinking 9/10/12 points from those 4 and they have ended up with 2.

Not quite, Back in 2002, it went 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2 (Shearer free kick), 4-2, 5-2, 5-3 This went 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2 5-2, 5-3

5-3 now - shades of the men's match all those years back when Shearer scored that free kick at OT. Possibly the same score summary as well?

5-2 now, probably a more fair reflection on the game, but they did well to keep it to a 1 goal deficit until the 83rd minute.

Stats aren't too favourable, as you'd expect, but they are back level at 2-2.

W9 D1 L2 PTS 28 in their first 12 games, but 1W 6D 1L PTS 9 in their last 8 games.

Blackburn have had a streaky season, unbeaten in their first 7, then 1 win in 7, but won tonight and have strung 5 wins in a row, including against Leeds and Boro. 3 behind Sunderland with a game in hand, they face each other at Ewood on Boxing Day.

As long as they don't get a winner, it's still a poor result and points dropped, but probably 90 seconds left.

Leeds back in front, 2-1.

So the under-fire Lopetegui is now just 2 points behind Howe, having taken 4 extra points from their respective last 4 games.

One thing about Spurs is when they win, they usually win well, but when they lose, it's always be 1 goal. Wins = 4-0, 3-1, 3-0, 4-1, 4-1, 4-0, all bar one more by 3 or more Loses = 1-2, 0-1, 2-3, 0-1, 1-2, 0-1, 3-4 So they have lost more than they have won this season, but are still +12 goal difference.