What's going on in the north-east football wise?

Papiss Cisse may well have saved Alan Pardew's job

Ronan Keating once performed a song entitled, 'Life Is A Rollercoaster' and he wasn't wrong and the fans of Newcastle and Sunderland can attest to that.

The Premier League is less than a third of the season old, but it has already been a rollercoaster for Newcastle and Sunderland fans.

Protests, thrashings, upsets, embarrassment and celebration have all been par for the course in the north-east over the opening months of the campaign.

Newcastle fans have had more ups-and-downs in the last few months than most would expect throughout the course of a season. Alan Pardew has gone from villain to hero as his side have climbed from rock-bottom in mid-September to eighth in the Premier League after four successive league wins.

It does not seem five minutes ago that fans were calling for his head as results were going against Newcastle and it seemed like Pardew was hanging onto his job by a thread. The turning point seems to be the home draw with Swansea at the start of October, when two goals from Papiss Cisse brought Pardew back from the brink.

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From that point on it has been celebration-time for the Toon Army, who have seen Newcastle win four Premier League games on the bounce and also pull off a shock win at Manchester City in the League Cup. During that time, Pardew has gone from public enemy number one on Tyneside to considering heading into town on a Saturday night after their 1-0 win over Liverpool at St James' Park to celebrate with the fans.

Pardew is now putting faith in youth and it is reaping dividends. Little-known Ayoze Perez has scored three in three games, while Sammy Ameobi and Paul Dummett are also excelling in the first team. After a long period of instability Pardew looks to be getting things right, which should keep the pressure off his shoulders for a while longer.

Things have been just as chaotic down the road for arch-rivals Sunderland, whose fans would have hoped for improvement on the pitch after last season's great escape. After victories over the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United at the back end of the last campaign then confidence would have been higher heading into this season.

However, it did not play out like that and it took Sunderland until the start of October to get their first league victory, after drawing five of their first six games in the Premier League.

But any celebrations after that first win were firmly dampened down by what infamously happened at St Mary's. On an afternoon that Black Cats fans will remember miserably for a long time, Sunderland were humiliated 8-0 by Southampton - a game which also saw one of the best own goals in many years as Santiago Vergini spectacularly volleyed into his own net from 18 yards.

After gift-wrapping Arsenal victory at the Stadium of Light the following weekend, Sunderland finally started steadying the ship with a victory at Crystal Palace and a draw with Everton last time out. Sunderland are now 14th in the Premier League and have a three-point advantage over the relegation places.

They need to put that black day at Southampton behind them and move on, something which they have shown signs of doing in the last two games. There are some good players in Gus Poyet's squad, but they desperately need to cut out the silly errors that have plagued them so far this season.

On paper, there are definitely three worse Premier League teams than Sunderland. However, they need to translate that potential into a string of decent performances to avoid requiring a second successive top-flight great escape.