6) Burnley’s search for away supremacy goes onJust a couple of months ago, before their game against Middlesbrough on 25 February, Crystal Palace were 19th in the league and separated from Sunderland only on goal difference. Since then Sunderland have won two points, and Palace 19. On Saturday they are odds-on favourites to beat Burnley, and with it secure safety, with three games – including two testing trips to Manchester – to spare. “We have to recognise the importance of Burnley, being just as important as any of the games we have gone through,” Sam Allardyce said. “The lads need to motivate themselves to get to the level they have been to beat Burnley and put it to bed once and for all, get past the 40-point mark and be safe.” Allardyce is a hard character to warm to, but the latest relegation-avoiding turnaround he has mastered is an absolute classic. Palace have won six of their past nine games, a period in which this weekend’s opponents, Burnley, have won one. Sean Dyche’s side are famously yet to win an away game this season, and now have only this match and a trip to Bournemouth next month in which to do so. Indeed, excluding last month’s visit to Anfield, when Ashley Barnes’s early goal allowed them to lead Liverpool for 38 glorious minutes, they have enjoyed a total combined tally of only 14 minutes of away leadership in all competitions this season. They will presumably be targeting the forthcoming home games against Wests Ham and Brom to get the points they need to make themselves safe from the threat of relegation, but their travelling fans deserve to revel in a few more minutes of supremacy before the campaign concludes. SB
7) Sunderland can take heart from previous bouncebacks
So it’s farewell. Sunderland will go down on Saturday if they do not at least match Hull’s result at Southampton – or on Sunday if they lose, Hull also lose but Swansea pull off a shock victory at Old Trafford. On the plus side, they already have more points than they managed in either of their last two relegation seasons – in 2005-06 they ended the season with only 15, and in 2002-03 with 19, tallies that even if added together wouldn’t have saved them in either campaign. Still, if there is one team that should not be overcome with despondency at this point it is Sunderland: after all their three previous relegations in the Premier League era (also including 1996-97, when they amassed an altogether more respectable 40 points), they returned within two years as champions of the second tier. This has been another season of gloom, the inevitable, but for all that, no more forgivable coda to a run of inferior efforts that in the last nine years has seen them finish 14th and 15th once each, and 13th, 16th and 17th twice. Also from their past they have learned that after relegation, mistaken managerial appointments can prove extremely costly (Lawrie McMenemy, we’re looking at you), unless action is very swiftly taken to replace them (Niall Quinn, your turn). Quite where this leaves David Moyes is anyone’s guess, though the away fans who suffered through Wednesday’s defeat at Middlebrough made their opinion very clear indeed. SB
8) History against Hull for Saints trip
February 1951 was not a good time to attempt to play football on England’s south coast. Bournemouth got 10 inches of snow that winter, and though blizzards weren’t the problem on the weekend of the 17th, rain most emphatically was. The Portsmouth Evening News commenced their description of that weekend’s 5-1 thrashing of Leyton Orient thus: “A ploughing match is an event reserved for farmers and farm-workers for the purpose of discovering the niftiest hand at his job. But in this game on Saturday the players had a similar event of their own on the mud flat that once was Fratton Park.” That morning the fire brigade had been called to the Dell, so they could assist with pumping water from the flooded pitch before the arrival in Southampton of Hull City. In the end that game did go ahead, though the Yorkshire Post would describe it as “a slogging struggle in mud and water”. Frank Dudley twice put Southampton in the lead on his home debut for the club, but it was to no avail: the brilliant Raich Carter scored once – his 200th goal in peacetime football – while Ken Harrison and Syd Gerrie were also on the scoresheet in a 3-2 victory that was described as “a fine game” by the watching Earl Mountbatten, Southampton’s president. All this is relevant only because it was the last time Hull won the fixture, with their 14 visits since bringing five draws and nine defeats including a 4-1, a 4-0, a 5-1 and a 6-1. There will certainly be no ploughing competitions on this occasion, so with their last away win in the league now more than eight months ago – they have won two of a possible 48 points on their travels since August – the only rut into which Hull might get stuck is a figurative one. With a couple of wins required to be sure of safety, there could be no better time to struggle out of it. SB
9) Last-day hijinks in League One
Port Vale’s midweek win at Walsall kept alive their slim hopes of springing clear of the League One relegation zone and spread alarm for Gillingham and Bury. But to complete their escape, the Valiants, who tend to be awful on the road, will need to win at Fleetwood Town, who need victory to have any chance of overtaking Bolton Wanderers for an automatic promotion spot. If Vale do muster an improbable victory, then Gillingham will only survive by winning at Northampton Town. And if both they and Gillingham win, then Bury will need at least a point from Southend United, who will jump from seventh into the top six if Bristol Rovers take points off Millwall. PD
10) An intriguing play-off scramble in League Two
If you were still seeking evidence of the entertainment value of the play-off system, you would need to look no further than League Two. The three automatic places are done and dusted, with only the order of the leading trio to be finalised, but after that everything is still up for grabs with two rounds of matches to go in the regular season. Everyone down to Grimsby Town in 14th position remains in the hunt for a play-off berth. It would take something freakish for Luton Town to tumble out of the promotion race, including a heavy defeat this weekend at Accrington Stanley, who, mind you, still have a chance of making a late surge from 13th spot into the play-offs. The team that is currently only one point outside those places, Mansfield Town, host the team that is currently uncatchable in third place and will be hoping that already-promoted Portsmouth no longer harbour ambitions of going up as champions. “They can’t win the title,” said Mansfield manager Steve Evans this week while swinging a pendulum in the general direction of Pompey’s players. “I still think it’s Doncaster’s and if Doncaster slip up, then it’s Plymouth’s. You’re not going to have two slipping up.” PD
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