Wanderers have locked their sights onto Peter Reid's Sunderland as the battle for Division One supremacy begins to hot up.

Four successive wins have taken the Reebok hit squad to within eight points of the runaway leaders and Colin Todd has suddenly changed his tune on his title prediction.

Before Christmas, when the current 12-match unbeaten run was in its infancy, the Wanderers boss tipped the Wearsiders to dominate the race for the Premiership and win the Championship by a distance, emulating his own team's feat of two years ago.

He still believes the team from the Stadium of Light are in pole position but he refuses to concede the title.

"I'd like to be in Sunderland's position, but we can still catch them," Todd said after goals from Dean Holdsworth and Neil Cox earned Wanderers a 2-0 Reebok win against Bruce Rioch's Norwich.

"That's our motivation. That's what the players believe they can achieve and, if we can continue to play in the way we have during the 12 unbeaten games, there is no reason why they shouldn't believe we can catch Sunderland.

"I know I said a couple of months ago that Sunderland wouldn't be caught but things have changed."

Cox, who finally got his reward after threatening on numerous occasions this season, summed up the confidence when he declared: "The Championship is not over yet."

Holdsworth, relieved to report that the injury which forced him to limp off 15 minutes from time had been diagnosed as a muscle spasm rather than hamstring damage, was similarly upbeat.

"Sunderland are there to be caught and if we continue to play well we can catch them," he predicted.

"That's our target. We're playing well, not leaking goals as we were earlier in the season and we've made this a hard place to come to.

"We're not even thinking about the play-offs. We want to go straight up and we know we can do it. But we won't be complacent."

Even Rioch, who led Wanderers to the Premiership for the first time in 1995 before leaving to manage Arsenal, is predicting another step up to the top flight for his old club.

"They should go up with the amount of talent they have," was his assessment. "The financial basis is stronger than most clubs in this division because over the past three or four years they have sold players to the tune of around £16 million and the Premier League payments they have had since 95 have given them a big advantage.

"They've been up and down twice but they've still been able to generate funds to purchase players of international ability to give them a base to get out of this division, which I think they most certainly will do."

Rivals Bradford had their promotion hopes dented with a 2-1 defeat at St Andrews yesterday. But it was a mixed blessing for Bolton as a last minute penalty gave Birmingham victory to put them on the same number of points as Wanderers.

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