Championship top two Newcastle United and Brighton and Hove Albion extended their lead at the summit of the table last weekend, with three of the chasing pack - Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday and Reading - failing to register a point.
First-placed Newcastle now find themselves nine points clear of Huddersfield Town in third and the atmosphere on Tyneside is one of optimism.
With Rafa Benitez at the helm, the Toon have cleared out many of the old guard such as Fabricio Coloccini, Steven Taylor and Moussa Sissoko and have brought in the likes of Dwight Gayle, Mohamed Diame and Matt Ritchie - young, hungry players with a clear goal of instant promotion to the Premier League.
And Benitez's master plan has - more or less - worked up to this point.
'But what does this have to do with Huddersfield Town?' I hear you ask.
Well, while flicking through Twitter this morning I came across an article written by Lee Ryder - chief sports writer at Tyneside's daily paper the Chronicle and one of my favourite journalists - which suggested that none of the third-to-seventh-placed sides would be capable of mounting a sustained challenge for one of the automatic promotion spots .
To me, that doesn't quite stack up.
Battling performances have been missing from St James' Park in recent years, with the Magpies too often showing a lack of heart and determination to earn themselves a result - and they showed exactly that to beat a spirited Rotherham side determined to park the bus on Saturday.
But let's put that result into context.
After 27 matches, Rotherham are the joint-worst Championship team there has been since the competition was re-branded in 2004, accumulating just 16 points.
The only team to equal that record was Rotherham again in 2004/05.
If Newcastle's squad - put together for over £100m more than the Millers' - couldn't beat Paul Warne's men at St James' Park, then questions would be asked.
Admittedly striker Gayle and Aleksandar Mitrovic are both sidelined with injury, but the best teams must learn to cope without their star men.
The real tests will come for Newcastle and Brighton in the next few weeks.
Benitez will be without Championship top scorer Gayle, who has no set return date to first team action, and Chris Hughton will be missing the Seagulls' top marksman Glenn Murray for the visit of Cardiff tonight.
And it was from late January to early April last season when Newcastle's season imploded.
In a 10-match spell from January 23 last year, Newcastle picked up just four points - effectively sending them into the Championship.
Not even a six-game unbeaten run at the end of the campaign could save them from the drop.
The Toon would need to wobble to lose their grip on an automatic promotion place - but that is far from unheard of in the North East.
And in terms of a team putting together an "a five or six-game wining sequence", Huddersfield Town have previous - this season.
Yes, Newcastle produced an eight-game winning streak, but Huddersfield Town have put together runs of six and seven matches unbeaten at different points this season and have proved to be one of the league's most consistent teams.
Admittedly, a poor run of form from October through to November sent Town sliding out of the automatic spots, but outside of that run the only matches the Terriers have lost have been away fixtures at Brighton, Reading and Sheffield Wednesday.
All of these matches were close-fought contests and Town will back themselves to come out on top when the three visit the John Smith's Stadium later this year.
Newcastle however have lost at home to Wolves and Blackburn and were handed away defeats by Rovers and Nottingham Forest, Leeds have slipped against Bristol City, Barnsley and QPR, and Reading have stumbled against Wolves, Brentford and Aston Villa.
Town's next two league matches are home fixtures against Brighton and Leeds - tough tests, but David Wagner will back his side to get a result against both.
Benitez's boys take on QPR next Wednesday, then face Derby County, Norwich City, Villa, Brighton, Town and Reading in the space of 31 days - the last three of which are all away from home.
Although I fully expect Newcastle and Brighton to go up this campaign, it is way too early for the respective clubs to be counting their chickens.
Town have proven time and again this season they cannot be discounted - a lesson Newcastle learned themselves at St James' Park in August.
Come the sharp end of the season, today's top two should expect to have the Terriers snapping at their heels.
