JOHN Carver has plenty of Tyne-Wear derby experience and is keen to ensure his head rules his heart when Newcastle United face Sunderland on Sunday.

Carver was born on Tyneside, played for the Magpies and has had two separate spells as assistant manager at St James’ Park, so he has tasted the frenetic nature of the meeting of the old foes on plenty of occasions.

Sixth-placed Newcastle are ten points clear of Sunderland ahead of the game, with the Black Cats missing out on an opportunity to close that gap when they lost to West Bromwich Albion last weekend.

But Carver would love to increase that distance on Sunday, even if he has to keep telling himself to look at the bigger picture – which is keeping Newcastle in the hunt for a European place.

“We have got a fantastic opportunity but it’s funny because – and this is me talking with my fan head on – my thinking is ‘If we win this, we’re 13 points away from Sunderland’,” said Carver.

“The fan part of me is saying that’s all I’m bothered about! But from a professional point of view it’s a chance to kick on and get closer to and consolidate that sixth or seventh spot.

“That has to be the goal now. I think that people look at the season and if we finish tenth or 11th it will be a disappointing season after the start we had.

“We’ve got to maintain that, we’ve got 12 games to go now and lots of points to play for.

But again – we get the right result and it opens that huge gap, which is good.”

Newcastle have been in the mix for a top six place for the majority of the season and they could have been a point shy of the top four had they not surrendered a two-goal lead at home to Wolves last Saturday.

After coasting in to a decent lead, Newcastle slipped up after the restart when Wolves clawed back to earn a point.

It left a feeling of disappointment and Carver said: “It was annoying but we’ve watched the game again and we didn’t even deserve to get a point in my opinion. We didn’t play well.

“It was not as if there was one or two not playing well, we didn’t play well as a group.

“We were actually quite fortunate to be winning 2-0 at half-time, they had a fantastic spirit, plenty of energy and that proved to be the case when we looked at the stats afterwards.

“People underestimated how well Wolves have done away from home as well – they drew at Spurs but we got battered there. It was no surprise they got back into it considering how poorly we played.

“Still – and I know the manager said this afterwards – it was still an improvement on the Spurs debacle so lets see what happens.”

Newcastle’s Senegalese striker Papiss Cisse is winning his race to be fit to face Sunderland. He had missed training in the early stages of the week with the groin problem which he picked up against Wolves.

Newcastle forward Nile Ranger has fined £6,000 and warned as to his future conduct after admitting making homophobic comments on Twitter. He was charged by the Football Association.