For my money Newcastle are really a 14th/15th place team...better than Sunderland...but McLaren has taken them down. Just an awful manager. Bad hire and he gave them plenty of opportunities to get rid but they didn't grasp the nettle until too late. Relegation is their own fault.

Norwich have, I think, a decent manager they've sold down the river by not investing. That said, Steven Naismith? A perennial journeyman who never has nor ever will score goals at the required rate. If that's the basket you put your eggs in, you're finished. Sad situation...they are the architects of their own downfall.

Sunderland I thought, briefly last week, might go and we'd finally be rid of Big Sam. But like Pulis and as has already been said, the combination of Defoe and a coach who knows how to get a team to defend is the magic formula in a relegation battle.

There have been some astonishingly inept managers this year. McLaren and Martinez have been simply awful. Both their teams have punched miles below their weights. Remi Garde couldn't even get his team fighting, let alone winning. It was more disinterested surrender than relegation battle. Pellegrini, who I like personally, has made a real dog's bollocks of Man City's season considering their investment and talent. A League Cup win and nothing else is a poor return for that squad and the Madrid game was little short of embarrassing. Although he gets away with it because he's a nice guy, Hiddink has really got very little out of Chelsea since he took over. Their performance vs. Tottenham showed us how far below par they've been all year, not just under Mourinho. The silver lining is that we've got rid of the King Bulls*** Merchant Brendan Rogers who never was and never will be anything other than a bluffer.

sunderland has them on goal differential. sunderland has to lose both games and nu need to beat tottenham. not likely. they're done.

Goodbye Newcastle - bet you wish you had kept Pardew now? Deluded fans, hopeless players and terrible owner. No guarantee they will come back up either. So many Newcastle fans on here were quick to mock us for taking on Pardew - where are those critics now? Complete losers.