Wolves lost 1-0 at Swindon to Iffy Onuora’s 89th-minute goal. Birmingham go to Bury.Graham Taylor, still restricted to part-time work and banned from shouting, returned to the touchline at Vicarage Road for the first time since his throat problem struck in early November and saw Allan Smart score the 57th-minute goal that gave his side a 1-0 victory over Bristol City and kept them in third place. They won 1-0 at home against Sheffield United, who are managed by their former player Steve Bruce. Paul Furlong earned a 20th-minute penalty and converted it himself to put his side only 11 points behind the leaders.Sunderland will be hoping to recover their glow at the Stadium of Light tomorrow when they take on the bottom club Crewe, who beat Bury 3-1 Ipswich travel to Wolves, where they may face a backlash. Kieron Dyer added a third before half-time, and Ipswich coasted home.
But Sunderland should also be looking over their shoulders at Birmingham, who picked up three points again yesterday and are now fourth.

Their pursuers from Suffolk swept aside Portsmouth 3-0, with Richard Naylor continuing to smooth over the four-week absence of David Johnson, who reappeared from the bench late on, by scoring twice in quick succession midway through the first half. SUNDERLAND SHOWED signs of mortality yesterday and saw their advantage in the Nationwide First Division cut to five points. A single goal by Scott Taylor was enough to stymie them yesterday at Tranmere but their ascent to the Premiership retains its air of inevitability because none but Ipswich seem capable of putting up a fight for the title So far… Thus Rushden manager Brian Talbot was left pleased with his new signing and Green still pondering the wisdom of his decision to remove Fairclough from his duties.. Plummer also tried to wake up his teammates with a driven volley two minutes after the break. However, Feuer pushed it over, and 15 minutes later he again denied Plummer after a fierce shot.

Although not by that much – the goalkeeper’s fingertips made sure of that.Then, with six minutes left in the first half, Alford got his head to a Robbie Reinelt cross but his flick hit the post with Feuer beaten. And it was Alford who caused the Rushden defence the most problems, as he appeared desperate to fulfil the rule that players must score against their old clubs.He went close several times and his attempt after half an hour to chip Rushden’s American goalkeeper Ian Feuer and his massive 6ft 7in frame livened up a drab first half-hour. Today was a benchmark and now we can put to bed what has happened and get on.”Yet Stevenage, with the exception of striker Carl Alford playing against his old club, and midfielder Dwayne Plummer, barely got out of their Boxing Day slumber, which was not helped by driving rain and a fierce wind for the majority of the afternoon. Blackwell said: “I was pleased with what I thought was a reasonably good performance given the events of the week. Green has also gone to the lengths of advertising the permanent manager’s post in the national press and has claimed a good response although some aspirants may withdraw their application after seeing replays of this performance.But Blackwell, who played under Fairclough during his time in charge, felt that this performance was an improvement on the 3-0 defeat at Cheltenham last week, when the players were only just coming to terms with Fairclough’s departure. Then they were only denied promotion by Green’s failure to make the Broadhall Stadium meet Football League requirements.