On 29 September 2007, Portsmouth beat Reading 7–4 at Fratton Park in the highest scoring match in Premier League history. This result lifted the South Coast club up to sixth place in the table at the start of October 2007. A 4–1 away win over on 3 November over Newcastle helped them climb to fourth, although a poor run of results around Christmas dropped them back to eight in the table by mid-January, four points adrift of a UEFA Cup slot. A consistent run of results followed after Christmas, lifting them to sixth in the table a month from the end of the season, but Portsmouth's failure to win any of their last four league games restricted them to an eighth-place finish. Nevertheless, this was their highest league placing for 53 years and, having scored 57 points from their 38 league games, set another new record for the club tipped as relegation certainties only two years earlier.