Newcastle and Sunderland drawing 1-1 at St James Park did little for either team’s prospects of staying in the Premier League this season. Jermain Defoe opened the scoring for the Black Cats, before Newcastle secured a point late-on through an effort from Aleksandar Mitrovic.
In truth the only team that benefited from the stalemate was relegation rivals Norwich, who claimed a crucial 1-0 win at West Brom to move out of the relegation zone.
Newcastle are 19th in the Premier League table, while Sunderland are 18th. Both sets of fans will be left biting their nails until the end of the campaign, which has become an annual tradition in the north east.
The clubs now both have highly-experienced men in charge of the team. Newcastle boss Rafa Benitez is more accustomed to being at the top than the bottom, so he is in new territory at Newcastle.
Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce however is a seasoned fighter of the relegation battle with the likes of Bolton and Blackburn in the past. He usually gets his teams out of trouble, even if they do sail close to the wind occasionally.
It seems the relegation battle this season will go right down to the wire with it looking increasingly like two from Norwich, Newcastle and Sunderland. It looks unlikely that both will escape like they did last year.
Next year’s Tyne-Wear derby may just be taking place in the Championship, as neither currently looks to have the quality to escape the relegation zone.