Eight wins should do it for Norwich City – and Hughton

And as long as we remain within touching distance of that happening, the messageboard protesters and keyboard warriors can continue to kick up as much of a fuss as they like, there will be no change of manager at Carrow Road.

The debate has become totally academic.

The display and result at Liverpool was abject and deserving of all the flak it got.

But did it warrant sacking a manager? No.

It's not as if City have never gone to Anfield before and been hammered, albeit against far better Liverpool sides.

It was 6-0 in 1978/79, 5-0 in 1986 in the FA Cup, 6-2 in 1986/87 – the third best league season in the Canaries' history, incidentally; it's happened before and it will occur again.

It's one thing to let in four or more at any of the pacesetters, but had we gone to the Hawthorns and been absolutely thumped in an Anfield fashion then I suspect Chris Hughton may well have paid the ultimate price.

As it stands, though, he is on a lot more firm ground than he was at half-time against West Ham, which was, let's not forget, just four weeks and two days ago.

Things can always spiral out of the control of the manager – remember Nigel Worthington was sacked five weeks after a 5-1 victory, while Peter Grant and Glenn Roeder both exited Carrow Road barely three weeks after league wins.

So the coming five fixtures will probably determine the future of Team Hughton as well as the Canaries' campaign.

Get at least a couple of wins out of Swansea, Sunderland, Fulham and Crystal Palace – anything we manage on December 28 is a bonus – and we'll start 2014 in much better shape.

But completely go to pot and perhaps pick up only a point or two and not only would the manager's future be right back in doubt but we'd be in the bottom three and in real trouble.

And even if you were to then change the manager, would it work? And that's assuming, of course, that David McNally has, as plenty of people think, already got an obvious successor in mind. And I don't mean, as some ringing in to Canary Call last Wednesday suggested, the likes of David O'Leary, Alan Curbishley, Neil Lennon or Neil Adams, or those who keep mentioning totally left-field candidates such as Thomas Tuchel of 1. FSV Mainz 05.

And, while we're at it, take away the highly-charged derby victory over Swansea and Malky Mackay hasn't got a win to show for his last eight games.

He did manage to scrape a draw at Carrow Road, though, and as one-sided as that game was, it probably cancels out what many fans will perceive as the relative lucky nature of Saturday's victory at the Hawthorns.

You can perhaps be critical of home wins in the Premier League, but any away victory, whatever the circumstances and however it is achieved, has to be applauded.

And even more so when it came just three days after Anfield.

It wasn't easy – and having been ruled out of going to the Hawthorns after a late fitness test, having to listen to the second half on radio was enough of an agonising nail-chewing exercise. Being there must have been unbearable.

Yes we rode out our luck and needed a fantastic save from John Ruddy to preserve our slender lead.

But this was an outstanding result. This time there can be no talk of West Brom being on the beach, and it makes you wonder how the rest of last season might have panned out had we won at the Hawthorns just before Christmas.

We should certainly go into the next few games not showing quite as much fear as was the case against Crystal Palace.

And maybe, just maybe, we're starting to turn a corner in terms of who's getting the goals.

Leroy Fer has now got four in the league and Gary Hooper three (plus a couple in the Capital One Cup).

And although that doesn't sound much at the moment… well, they're beginning to find the net on a regular basis and their efforts are on a par with Grant Holt's a year ago – when he was on four for the season.

In a season when everyone really can beat everyone - just ask Stoke - all of a sudden the bottom of the table is looking that much harder to pull clear from.

Nine days ago Palace looked simply dreadful at Carrow Road, but six points later you wouldn't bet against them staying up.

And that's why our next few games will determine our fate - and the management team.

Beat - or at least avoid defeat to - the likes of Fulham and Sunderland, and the bottom of the table will make a lot better reading.

Lose, however, and the currently dormant Hughton debate will be reawakened faster than you can say 'post-Christmas slump'.

Now we've picked up a few more points on the road, you'd like to think that we won't lose the habit of getting them at home instead.

Because if we do we'll be right back to square one, and then all the pressure will be on to have to win at Sunderland the week after next.

But you'd hope that we ought to be able to manage that most rare of feats this coming Sunday: back-to-back meaningful results against teams with something to play for.

In other words, something not last achieved in the final two games of the 2012/13 campaign, but exactly a year ago, when we followed up

beating Sunderland by winning at Swansea.

We should hold all the cards against Swansea at the weekend.

For starters because they're not playing until tonight, and then in Switzerland on Thursday evening, it means they'll have had an infinitely more intense build-up to Sunday lunchtime than us.

And then there's the whole Europe thing.

Twenty years ago we played two games to reach the last 32 of the Uefa Cup.

Assuming Swansea qualify from their group on Thursday evening that means they will have had to get through 10 to reach the same stage of the Europa League, visiting Sweden, Romania, Spain, Russia and Switzerland along the way.

That's got to have hit their league prospects.

Certainly their immediate post-Europe results bear that notion out – they've managed two wins and two draws from their seven such fixtures, and haven't won any of the last four.

Just as well there's no danger of us ever putting together a cup run for us to ever get into that situation, eh?

The rest of modern football might be an increasingly depressing experience, but that's never the case with the FA Cup third-round draw.

I suppose after last year it was asking too much for another interesting away draw.

The hopes of a trip to the likes of Fleetwood or Burton may have to wait for another season.

As ties go they don't come much more underwhelming than the prospect of playing the same fixture twice inside the space of a fortnight.

Maybe we'll repeat our quick double over West Brom two seasons ago, but at the moment it's hard to get worked up about this tie.

It'll be interesting to see what ticket prices two supposedly wealthy Premier League clubs can conjure up for this one – the bare minimum you'd hope, especially since a bit of Fulham fatigue will undoubtedly set in after an expensive Boxing Day meeting.

If we were to lose I guess at least there's minimum embarrassment involved, unlike, say, Leicester, or Leyton Orient or Bury or...

Clean sheet watch: all-right, so there was the seven conceded at Manchester City, the five at Liverpool and the four at Arsenal, but we've now managed five clean sheets in 15 league games.

We probably won't get to 12 or 13 come the end of the season, and you do wonder if, say Manchester United will put on a Bayer Leverkusen-type display at Carrow Road on December 28.

But when you consider that we managed only five clean sheets in the whole of the 2004/5, go figure what our present defensive capabilities say about our relegation chances.