Dutch Mackem is latest new man

I think it is fair to say that Alan Pardew and Tony Pulis have virtually pulled Crystal Palace and West Brom to safety and over at Villa there has been an improvement since Tim Sherwood came in for Paul Lambert.

The only other change prior to Saturday had seen Chris Ramsey step up at QPR but by the time we kicked off on Saturday tea-time it was obvious that another change was on the horizon.

It was inside the Turf when I spotted that Villa were 2-0 up at Sunderland on a television screen, and with a blink of an eye it was 4-0 with home supporters either leaving the Stadium of Light or opting to remonstrate with manager Gus Poyet; all of this before half time.

The official attendance was not far short of 46,000 but I'd love to know how many were still in there when they kicked off the second half. Certainly there were enough to hear the chant of We've only got ten men when they spotted that Sebastian Larsson hadn't come out; he finally appeared around six minutes in after receiving treatment for an injury.

Sunderland have developed a habit of moving managers on quickly under the ownership of Ellis Short so I don't think anyone was surprised with yesterday's news that Gus Poyet had been fired. I just hope they informed him rather than have him find out working as a pundit for the BBC as he claimed when the axe fell at Brighton.

It's only just over six years since Roy Keane left but since they hired and fired all of Ricky Sbragia, Steve Bruce, Martin O'Neill, Paolo Di Canio and now Poyet.

I'm not sure how Italians and Uruguayans cope with the Mackem accent but this time they've gone Dutch with the appointment of the 67 year-old Dick Advocaat which currently makes him the oldest manager working in the Premier League.

Sunderland are the closest to us now when we look up the table. They have one point more and just above them with a further two points are Hull and Villa. The rest now look to have pushed too far away.

They are Palace, West Brom and Everton who all recorded wins and I would think all of them are now very close to reaching safety.

Up at the other end of the table, the area where one journalist thought we were challenging after our win on Saturday, it is very tight.

I think it would take a brave man or a fool right now to back against Chelsea winning the title but my thoughts that Man City would be a clear second are now looking very much in doubt. They have some class players but, as we saw on Saturday, they are not currently performing as well as they should be.

Their recent run has seen Arsenal get within one point of them and their close rivals Manchester United are only a further point behind. I have to wonder about the quality of this league when United are so high up the table. They looked good yesterday against Spurs but that's been rare this season; maybe it was the decision to leave out Angel Di Maria that helped.

Off the field, West Ham's Carlton Cole is the latest to be fined by the FA for comments on Twitter.  His back pocket is twenty grand lighter and he's been severely warned as to his future conduct. He got a fine of the same amount last time, in 2011. This latest tweet was apparently full of expletives but has since been deleted.

Hull fans will be ready to battle again after their club challenged the FA's decision to prevent them changing their name to Hull Tigers. An independent panel has claimed the FA process was flawed and told Hull they can apply again.

Hopefully we won't go like cricket and have such as Lancashire Lighting v Yorkshire Vikings.

All last weekend's result and stats are below with the leading goalscorers, each club's red and yellow card counts and this weekend's fixtures.