Where Cats’ play-off hopes stand and points haul they must target
It has looked for some time like being the most competitive race for a top-six spot in League One's recent history and as the regular season enters its final month, the pace remains relentless.
74 points is the highest tally in the last ten years of the team finishingsixth,andyetwithsix games to play Sunderland are only two positive results from that total. Even so, their hopes remain on a knife edge.
So what kind of overall totalwillSunderlandneedtoaim for?
If we take each team's points-per-gamesofaranduse ittoprojecttheirpotentialfinal tally,thetablelookssomething like this:
Wigan Athletic - 98 points. Rotherham United - 94 points. Plymouth Argyle - 86 points. Sheffield Wednesday - 83 points.
Sunderland - 81 points. Wycombe Wanderers - 78 points.
Oxford United - 77 points.
Sunderland'striptoOxford United this weekend is clearly crucial, and a major opportunity for both sides.
A win for Oxford would put them right back into contentionaftertwodisappointingresults, while a Sunderland win would leave major problems for Karl Robinson's side. The BlackCatswouldbefourpoints clearwithagame-in-hand,and their opponents would still have fixtures against MK Dons (H) and Rotherham United (A) to come.
No side in this century has
failed to make the play-offs with a total of 80 points, and that still looks like a decent barometer with a handful of games to go.
Sheffield Wednesday will expect to get beyond that,
though they face three difficultawaygamesagainstBolton Wanderers, MK Dons and Wycombe Wanderers, whose win againstCambridgeonTuesday night underlined their threat to Sunderland's hopes.
Gareth Ainsworth's side still have difficult fixtures against Plymouth Argyle and that fixture with the Owls, but both take place on their home turf.
Plymouth themselves facing a punishing run-in, but such is the excellence of their work over recent weeks, even twowinsfromhereoninwould likely be enough.
Though the margin for error remains minimal, it has beenadecentfewdaysforSunderland whose fate remains firmly in their own hands.
Four wins might well do it, while an ambitious target of five would make it all but certain.