WHEN Newcastle United drew with Watford in the middle of last month, the Magpies’ hopes of avoiding relegation looked to be as good as over and the battle to avoid the drop to the Championship looked certain to boil down to a fight between four teams.

Newcastle, sitting in 19th, were two points adrift of safety, but seven points behind 16th-placed Everton, who had a game in hand. Leeds and Brentford were a further three and four points better off respectively, with Watford, Norwich and Burnley all sharing the Magpies’ plight. At that stage, it seemed a clear-cut case of choosing three from four.

Fast forward a little over a month, and the picture at the foot of the table has changed entirely. In the wake of this week’s matches, Norwich and Watford occupy the bottom two positions in the table, and continue to look in deep trouble. Above that, though, just four points now separate Burnley in 18th position from Brentford in 14th. Three from four has become three from seven, with even Leicester City in 12th and Aston Villa in 13th looking nervously over their shoulder as the gap to the relegation zone shrinks with every game.

Newcastle and Burnley have been the big winners in the last month, with both clubs having turned their form around since the start of the year.

Newcastle’s revival under Eddie Howe has been well documented here, with the Magpies now unbeaten in six league matches, having taken ten points from their last four games. The club’s January transfer business has clearly helped, but the scale of the improvement under Howe is especially notable given the continued absence of this season’s leading goalscorer, Callum Wilson.

Even without Wilson in the team, there is no reason why Newcastle’s upturn should not be sustainable, with a final points tally in the mid-to-highs 30s seemingly well within their reach.

If anything, Burnley’s sudden transformation has been even more remarkable, with Wednesday’s win over Tottenham meaning Sean Dyche’s side are unbeaten in five of their last six matches, with the only defeat in that sequence a narrow 1-0 loss to title-chasing Liverpool.

Whereas the loss of Chris Wood to Newcastle had initially looked like being terminal to Burnley’s survival hopes, the subsequent acquisition of Dutch international Wout Weghorst has arguably strengthened the Clarets’ starting side.

Maxwell Cornet is back from the Africa Cup of Nations, and Burnley’s long-respected defensive strength has finally returned, with successive clean sheets against Brighton and Spurs representing a return to former values of resilience, work rate and finely-tuned defensive organisation. Continue in a similar vein, and there is every chance of Burnley surviving.

Who will replace them in the bottom three? Suddenly, there are three very viable candidates hovering just above the drop zone.

Everton are on the same points tally as Newcastle, albeit with a game in hand, and the Toffees have the look of a side that never expected to be involved in a relegation battle, but that suddenly find themselves embroiled at the heart of one with a squad that looks ill-equipped for such a fight.

Since picking up ten points from the first four matches under Rafael Benitez, Everton have won just three of their subsequent 19 league games, the worst run of any team in the division over that spell.

Aside from a convincing home win over Leeds, which might well have said more about the weaknesses of the opposition than Everton’s own strengths, Frank Lampard’s appointment as manager has failed to reverse the negative trends that had taken hold under Benitez.

Perhaps, when Dominic Calvert-Lewin regains full fitness, Everton’s attack will click into gear? For now, though, the Toffees look weak and disorganised at the back and pedestrian and power-puff in midfield. In many respects, they resemble the Newcastle side that went down under Benitez in 2016. Excellent on paper, with the likes of Donny van der Beek and Richarlison now filling the Moussa Sissoko and Georginio Wijnaldum roles, but completely dysfunctional on the pitch. And with a new manager arriving too late in the day to turn things around.

Might Leeds be the team to get Everton out of trouble? It looked that way on Wednesday as Marcelo Bielsa’s team suffered a 6-0 thrashing at Liverpool. Anyone can be heavily beaten at Anfield when Jurgen Klopp’s side are in the mood, but the worrying thing from a Leeds perspective is that their latest hiding is part of a much wider pattern. In their last four matches, Leeds have conceded a staggering 16 goals.

Bielsa’s teams have always been somewhat open, but the scale of Leeds’ current vulnerabilities is out of the norm, and whereas in previous seasons, they have been able to outscore their opponents thanks to their counter-attacking strengths, the continued absence of Patrick Bamford is having a majorly detrimental impact on Leeds’ attacking output. Just three points clear of the drop zone, having played at least a game more than all three of the teams directly below them, Leeds are in deep trouble.

The same is true of Brentford, who are following the now well-established template of a newly-promoted team starting the season like a house on fire, but tailing off alarmingly in the winter and being dragged back into a relegation fight in the spring.

In their last eight matches in all competitions, the Bees have racked up one draw and seven defeats. Clearly, that is relegation form, with Ivan Toney’s early-season sharpnes having deserted him and Brentford’s defence repeatedly malfunctioning. They host Newcastle on Saturday, and if they fail to claim a victory, the alarm bells really will be ringing.

Suddenly, the battle at the foot of the Premier League looks too close to call. Newcastle and Burnley are heading in the right direction; Everton, Leeds and Brentford are sinking like a stone. If those trends continue for another month or so, expect a major shake-up in the standings.