THE wheels are coming off but at least there is a chance to put them back on again - hopefully!

Blackburn Rovers and Burnley are going through the mill at the moment and the chances of the East Lancs derby being reinstated next season are looking pretty good.

While the appeal of the pair meeting again is obviously huge, ideally everyone would prefer it to be as a Premiership fixture rather than the Division One clash that it is showing great potential to be.

For Rovers there is at least a party on the horizon in Cardiff, but the sooner that particular distraction is out of the way the better.

Relegation battles require full concentration and Rovers are not looking the healthiest among the combatants looking to beat the drop.

While Leicester City's change of manager has failed to prompt a revival, and they are beginning to look doomed, Derby's choice of John Gregory could prove inspired.

Throw into the mix that Ipswich, Southampton and, to a lesser extent, Middlesbrough are finding some form and picking up points then it does leave a mere handful of likely candidates.

On Radio Five this weekend Alan Green made the observation that Sunderland, just three points ahead of Rovers, were 'too good to go down'.

As they say careless talk costs lives and the only factor that ensures survival is an ability to keep picking up points - a case in point being Boro's 0-0 bore draw against Charlton but it still recouped the Riversiders a precious point.

At least the alarm bells are ringing now for Souness and his side as a late slide towards the abyss is always more dangerous.

For the Clarets too time still exists to arrest their poor run, but their season is beginning to show all the hallmarks of Watford's run of last season - though fortunately Stan Ternent's side arrested the slide ironically at Vicarge Road last night.

The Hornets were looking good for automatic promotion last term but after the halfway mark they faded more quickly than a cheap T-shirt and were not even in the running for the play-offs at the death.

The problem that faces the Clarets is that their early season highs were based on a philosophy of if you score two then we'll get three.

Their success over Bradford City at Valley Parade was perhaps the case in point as they created chance after chance and, whether the defence kept tabs on the Bantams or not, they always looked likely to manage another goal.

Now the chances have dried up to an extent and, despite the emergence of Arthur Gnohere and Ian Cox, a rearguard stripped of the experience of Steve Davis and Mitchell Thomas is looking less and less capable of coping with some of the first division's better strikers.

While the circumstances are different, the same applies to Burnley as it does to Blackburn - points are the only currency that counts.

While Clarets fans continue to point out that when they claim all the points from their games in hand they will be back in the automatic promotion frame, those points have still to be won and on current evidence they will be hard earned.

A Premiership derby between the old rivals would be a dream come true, sadly the signs are that it will remain just that - a dream.