'That might come back to bite me': Alan Shearer immediately regrets making joke about Sunderland

Somehow, Sunderland are sitting at the top of the Championship table on equal points with Sheffield United and the talk is about this being a promotion season.

The mackems will have been missing from the top flight for 8 years come the end of this season having spent a couple of those in League One.

Newcastle United had been waiting for another derby day for years when the Magpies were drawn against the Black Cats in last season's FA Cup. It was finally time to start swinging that derby pendulum back our way.

A nice, easy 3-0 win was our reward for our patience last season, but as things stand, derby days in the Premier League could be back next season and Newcastle can hopefully start a run of their own and finally end all this six-in-a-row business that the mackems have been living off for too long now.

Alan Shearer made the age old joke about the Tyne Wear derby

On The Rest Is Football podcast Q&A, Alan Shearer was asked if he'd like to see Sunderland back in the Premier League and he made the obvious joke, but immediately regretted it.

“Absolutely. We want Sunderland back in the Premier League because it’s guaranteed six points for us, isn’t it?

“That might come back and bite me in the future.

“You want to play in those games. They’re great derby games to play in St James’ and it’s Sunderland. So, yeah, I want them.

“I do actually want them back up because they’re not only good games for the players, but for the fans to look forward to as well.”

Bring the derby back, it'll be fun

A local derby is often the highlight of the fixture list, they hadn't been the best of games for us in the latter years of the Mike Ashley era, but you'd have to expect that we'd make light work of them these days.

They can be unpredictable games, so expecting six points a season can, and has bitten us on the arse many times.

There's only one way to find out how they'd go though, and that's to play them. So we can live with Sunderland getting promoted as long as they come up in second place and don't win the league. Also, no playoffs because we know they can't do that.