AS Newcastle United prepare to head into a run of five fixtures that potentially could make or break their season, manager Sam Allardyce has claimed: "We're ahead of schedule."

After the visit of Portsmouth today, the Magpies face Sunderland, Liverpool, Blackburn and Arsenal before they head into potentially easier fixtures against Birmingham, Fulham, Derby and Wigan.

A decent points return from the first batch of fixtures could seriously strengthen their arm in the push for a place in Europe this season, even offering slim hopes of sneaking into a Champions League place.

And Allardyce, whose side are yet to lose on home soil this season, feels Newcastle's early-season form is slightly better than he had been hoping for, despite winning just one of their games on their travels.

"We've had ten games, have 17 points and are slightly ahead of what I expected," said Allardyce.

"That's pretty good but we want to relieve the pressure on having to win at home every time we play, because that's going to be impossible, by stabilising away results.

"At Middlesbrough we should have won, that was realistic.

Against Derby we should have come away with at least a draw, while we should have beaten Reading but drew 1-1.

"The extra points would have made a massive difference to our league position. Going into the next five I think everybody likes to play the bigger teams.

"They will challenge the players to put in their best performances.

That's what I'm expecting."

Allardyce has allowed Lee Clark to leave his coaching role at St James' Park and team up with his predecessor at Norwich City.

The Canaries appointed former Newcastle manager Glenn Roeder during the week and he indicated to Newcastle he wanted Clark as his new right-hand man.

Discussions took place yesterday and Clark agreed to join Roeder at Carrow Road on a twoand- a-half-year deal.

"I have worked with him before (at Newcastle) and when he asked me to think about coming down and joining him at Norwich it was a decision I couldn't turn down,'' said Clark.

It was a tough decision but to be given the role of assistant manager means he has a lot of faith in me.''