Is battle to avoid final relegation spot already a two-horse race?
[Getty Images] And then there were two? Nottingham Forest stunned Sunderland with a sensational 5-0 win on Friday to put some serious distance between themselves and the bottom three. It moved Vitor Pereira's side on to 39 points, eight clear of 18th-placed Tottenham and six clear of 17th-placed West Ham .
It is 15 years since a team was last relegated from the Premier League with 39 points. So, with Forest unbeaten in eight games in all competitions, is it time to call the battle to avoid the Premier League's final relegation spot a two-horse race? Forest boss Pereira was quick to tell BBC Match of the Day that his side's tally "isn't enough" to stay up quite yet.
"We need more points, we need to win more games and we need to keep our mentality," he said. But is Pereira being needlessly cautious? Twenty-three teams have been on exactly 39 points after 34 games across Premier League history - and none of them have gone down.
There is a strong argument to be made that Forest, and by extension Leeds on 40 points, already have enough to stay up. When looking at 38-match seasons the average points tally of the side finishing 18th is 34. 5 - so 35 points is, on average, good enough for survival.
And, in even better news for Forest and Leeds fans, over the past five seasons the average points tally for 18th has dropped to 29. 6. Only six teams have ever been relegated from the Premier League with 39 or more points in a 38-game campaign.