A minor seasonal miracle has occurred. After a fairly challenging set of matches, City are still third. More, we're equal on points with West Brom and Watford, and only behind them on goal difference. I looked carefully at my toast this morning, and for a moment I was almost sure I could see Gary Johnson's face in it.

Of course, there are no miracles, there is no Curse of Daring to Hope, none of that animist stuff ever applied. We just can't stand the idea that so many of our hopes and dreams hang on the way a small round object ricochets off young men's legs in the vicinity of a wooden frame with a net hanging off it, so we invent a narrative in which we feature as active participants rather than passive observers.

The truth of this elementary proposition was made apparent yesterday afternoon, while we were beating Coventry 2-1. At no point was I even tempted to Dare to Hope, but they still managed to give away a soft goal twenty minutes from the end anyway, and then five minutes from the end they gifted the ball to a Coventry player alone in the box. By the grace of a merciful Jah he could only manage to hit the post and it bounced out to a City player who cleared it, but the course of the game was so similar to the Southampton one where I had Dared to Hope, it amounted to a control experiment. Based on a statistical group of two, I can now confirm my own correctness to my own satisfaction, which let's face it is all any of us really need.

There were times when City played some shockingly elegant football. Normally if the ball comes to them from behind and they're facing the wrong way they get all jittery, and either play it sideways or dribble off somewhere futile. Yesterday they used a manoeuvre called control-and-turn, which is a self-explanatory concept, but hard to put into practice.

We're starting to think seriously about the possibility of promotion now, and it's giving us the right heebiejeebies. I'd love a season in the Premiership, but having Arsenal and Man Utd coming would be like being a team of fauns, suddenly promoted into a division of meat processors.

Before the game there was a minute's silence for Motherwell player Phil O'Donnell, who died after a heart attack on the pitch last Saturday. It was so impeccably observed you could hear a dog barking in the middle distance. It's an amazing thing to stand absolutely quiet and still with fifteen thousand people. Shame someone had to die for it though.