Bottom four losing ground

Ricoh Arena - could it host League One football in 2012?

That was an incredible day. A total of 66 goals were scored in ten first division games. Liverpool matched us by hitting six but we were eclipsed by Blackburn, who won 8-2 at West Ham, and Fulham who slammed Ipswich 10-1 at Craven Cottage.

There was nothing quite like that in the Championship this year on Boxing Day where our 3-0 win against Doncaster, alongside Readings similar win against Brighton, were the biggest wins of the day. It was a day when only 23 goals were scored.

Our win so us move up to 9th in the table, our highest placing this season, and significantly we remain three points behind Reading. It's significant because Reading's place is our next target. Their win lifted them into the top six and the play off positions, ousting Leeds who dropped out after defeat at Derby.

It's tightened up somewhat at the top. Southampton won again which was no surprise given they were playing at home. However, the West Ham stumble continues. It's just one win in four now and the draw at Barnsley allowed Middlesbrough to draw level with them on points.

Middlesbrough have lost only three games this season. That's less than any other team and I think they could end the season in one of those top two positions but as we go into the last games of 2011 they remain in third place, sharing the play off places with Cardiff, Hull and Reading.

Down at the bottom we can now say with some certainty that the current bottom four will remain the bottom four going into 2012. There is a five point gap now between them and the next club Millwall.

The alarm bells will definitely be ringing at these clubs. Three of them have already changed manager this season. Bristol City got off to a flyer under Derek McInnes but they've won just two points in five games now and are only out of the bottom three on goal difference.

Then it's Nottingham Forest. Again there were some good results when Steve Cotterill came in but it has become something of a disaster since. They  have picked up just one point in their last six games, and that against Bristol City. More concerning is that they've failed to score a single goal in those games. Ironically they'd scored three in the game before this run, the only time they've scored three in a game all season.

Doncaster are Doncaster. They'll continue to bring in names on short term deals but I think it will all end in tears for them despite their suggestions that it is the way forward for a lot of clubs.

Finally, poor Coventry are marooned at the bottom although they did beat Bristol City on Monday, their first win in twelve games.

That's top and bottom sorted. For weeks we seemed to be about the same distance from both. Then came the run of four defeats as we hovered ever closer to the bottom. With one game to go this year we are now 12 points from the bottom three and 11 points from an automatic promotion place. With our next three league games against teams currently above us we have a fantastic chance of getting even closer to those top places.

The Boxing Day results, stats, leading scorers, each club's disciplinary records, the highest and lowest attendances are all below with the weekend fixtures.