As cup football holds our attention for the next seven days, the Premier League table will remain still, very still. Great news if you’re doing well. Not such good news if things are not going to plan. For this week’s blog, it’s not so much Top 10 as ‘Bottom 10’ as the relegation prospects of the Premier League’s bottom ten are assessed.
11. NEWCASTLE (27pts)
FOR (survival): Newcastle already have a valuable eight-point cushion over the bottom three, which is crucial at this stage. They have a nucleus of good players in Tim Krul, Moussa Sissoko, Daryl Janmaat and Fabricio Coloccini. When all these are fit and playing well, Newcastle are capable of beating anyone as they showed against Chelsea (Dec 6).
AGAINST: Alan Pardew jumping ship to go to Crystal Palace was not a good sign for Newcastle. Managing a club below them in the league was considered a preferable option. That was three weeks ago now and they have taken one point from nine and gone out of the FA Cup since. John Carver is in temporary charge but does not look the candidate to steady the ship. Indecision about what to do, especially before the transfer window shuts, could benefit the sides below them.
12. EVERTON (23pts)
FOR: Their squad of players is far too good to go down and they were good enough to accrue 72 points last season. In players like Romelu Lukaku and Kevin Mirallas, they have attacking players who can threaten and hurt even the best defences.
AGAINST: The incident with Mirallas taking the penalty ahead of Leighton Baines against West Brom suggested all was not well. The team is ageing and their defending this season has been awful. The Europa League resumes in a few weeks, and they don’t want to face European adventures on Thursdays and relegation six-pointers on Sundays.
13. CRYSTAL PALACE (23pts)
FOR: In getting Alan Pardew as manager, Crystal Palace made a bold statement that they were staying in the Premier League with an established man at the helm. Three wins out of three and the feelgood factor so important last season is back at Selhurst Park. Neil Warnock was a stop-gap after Tony Pulis’ resignation before the first game back in August, and Pardew has the right dynamism to get the best out of talents like Jason Puncheon, Dwight Gayle and Wilfried Zaha.
AGAINST: One league win in 14 before the victory against Tottenham (Jan 10) hints that the team can lose its way. While the names mentioned above are all ‘mood’ players. When the mood takes them, they can be unstoppable, but they can have spells when their unpredictability is a bad thing. The lack of a proven Premier League goalscorer could be troublesome if not rectified in the next two weeks.
14. WEST BROM (22pts)
FOR: The decision to appoint Tony Pulis as manager looks a reassuring one. Pulis has never been relegated and he doesn’t want to start now. Albion had become a soft touch under Pepe Mel and Alan Irvine, but that theory was dispersed as soon as the Welshman put his tracksuit and cap on and got to work. It won’t be easy but they have good, steady professionals to see the job through.
AGAINST: The Hawthorns is not either the Britannia or Selhurst Park. There is no biting cold wind or ramshackle feel to intimidate the opposition, and Pulis will struggle to replicate the same kind of ‘home’ atmosphere with Albion as he did at Stoke and Crystal Palace. Someone has to supplement Saido Berahino up front no one else has managed more than two goals this season.
Aston Villa’s Christian Benteke will need to impress if his side are to avoid the drop.
15. ASTON VILLA (22pts)
FOR: Isolated results like the win at Liverpool (Sep 13) and a home draw against Manchester United (Dec 20) suggest Villa can be a handful for anyone on their day. Christian Benteke remains dangerous if he gets the right service, while Ron Vlaar and Fabian Delph would get in any other Premier League side in the bottom half, and quite a few in the top. Paul Lambert has faced this situation in his two other seasons at Villa and survived, so he is now used to this default crisis.
AGAINST: An embarrassing lack of goals 11 in 22 games. It’s not just that Villa are not scoring, but they are not creating and they are not getting many players into forward positions. However, it’s very difficult to change how you are playing as a team midway through the season. Their status as a big club could also hinder them as the fans expect better, much better, and discontent and swathes of empty seats at Villa Park will make life even harder.
16. SUNDERLAND (20pts)
FOR: The signing of Jermain Defoe last week was a big statement that Sunderland are not going to go down. Defoe is the sort of striker that has not been seen on Wearside since Darren Bent in his 18-month spell, and before that, Kevin Phillips. The Black Cats were in a far more perilous position last season and survived, so the players have the confidence of knowing what is needed, even if that means beating the teams at the top.
AGAINST: They have forgotten how to win. Three from 22 matches is the worst in the league, and Gus Poyet often sends them out not to lose, or to stay in a match, rather than take it by the scruff of the neck and dominate it. 16 draws from their last 16 games may or may not be enough, so six wins and ten defeats would be more beneficial. Poyet’s unease at how the club is run and how players are recruited cannot be helpful either, as it always seems to resurface after a poor run of results.
17. BURNLEY (20pts)
FOR: Manager Sean Dyche has cut an impressive figure all season for Burnley. He remained calm and composed when his side had not won any of their opening ten games and it’s obvious that his team has improved, home and away, since. The team spirit has never wavered and the return of Danny Ings from injury has brought goals, and he has found help from others like George Boyd and Scott Arfield. A return of 16 points from their last 12 games is solid form and a continuation of that ratio until the end of the season would be enough to stay up.
AGAINST: Saying that Burnley will survive almost defies logic. With their crowds, infrastructure and wafer-thin squad, they should finish bottom of the league. They have been written off all season, but you just wonder if they will blink near the finish when they could do the unthinkable. Like other romantic tales with Blackpool and Barnsley, it might be a one-year love affair with the top flight.
18. HULL (19pts)
FOR: A quick look at the Hull team-sheet reveals a decent spine in Allan McGregor, Michael Dawson, Tom Huddlestone and Nikica Jelavic, who all possess the quality and Premier League know-how to guide the Tigers out of trouble. Manager Steve Bruce has worked wonders on Humberside already in getting a modest squad promoted and then reaching the FA Cup final in his two previous seasons, so surviving, and with a better class of players, should be achievable.
AGAINST: The loss through injury of Jelavic and Abel Hernandez to injury leaves them threadbare up front. Bruce will have to leaf through his contacts book quickly and find a quality replacement soon. The Hatem Ben Arfa experiment was a short-lived failure, while Paul McShane’s outburst about not playing in December was unexpected and poor for morale. It’s not fashionable to say it but getting knocked out of the Europa League by unfancied Belgians Lokeren back in August was not a masterstroke. Even if they were still in Europe, they wouldn’t be doing worse in the league, and there would have been more games to satisfy a bigger squad. From the outside, this has the feel of Bruce’s relegation season at Birmingham in 2005/06.
19. QPR (19pts)
FOR: One man Charlie Austin. He is the third highest goalscorer in the league with 13 and over 50% of his team’s goals. He has found the net against Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City and he has scored in all five of QPR’s victories this season. Is that the definition of a one-man team? Manager Harry Redknapp has pulled off great escape acts at West Ham and Portsmouth before, and it’s time for one more. Home fixtures are not kind but QPR must find a way of using the tight surroundings and bobbly pitch at Loftus Road to their advantage.
AGAINST: Their dreadful away form. No team has ever started a Premier League season with ten successive losses on the road, and more worryingly, Redknapp’s honest assessment as to why (a lack of pace means they carry no threat on the counter attack) suggests they will struggle to alter that. Austin’s goals have been very welcome, but he receives virtually no help. A club where a player like Adel Taarabt can be slagged off so publicly by his manager in October and then almost wander back into the team in January hints that this is not a happy camp.
20. LEICESTER (17pts)
FOR: After a wretched run of 13 games without a victory lasting more than three months, Leicester have grabbed seven points from their last four and are ‘only’ three points from safety. Plus, Nigel Pearson has recovered from his ugly spat with a supporter and has usually presented himself as a calm figure in public, while the club record signing of Croatian striker Andrej Kramaric for £9 million this month suggests they will not go quietly. Games against QPR, Hull, Burnley and Sunderland will be absolutely vital to their chances of survival.
AGAINST: That dreadful autumn run was a big pointer about a lack of quality, with more than one addition needed to bridge the gap. Leicester have a team full of willing players who never give less than 100% and are full of energy, but that screams Championship and not Premier League.
VERDICT: Apologies to the fans of all those teams concerned, it is nothing personal. I cannot see anything but relegation for QPR, despite Charlie Austin’s goals. Remember Andy Johnson scored 21 for Crystal Palace in 2004/05 and they went down. HULL look like they have got stuck in a rut and they are a halfway house in terms of the team they want to be and the one they need to be. That means relegation. For the last spot, I am torn between LEICESTER and BURNLEY. The meeting at Turf Moor on April 25 will be crucial and I think it will be Burnley who get the better of it, so LEICESTER to go down.
Now, it’s over to you readers. Which three teams do you think will take the drop?
Enjoy the convenience of having The Sunday Post delivered as a digital ePaper straight to your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Subscribe for only £5.49 a month and enjoy all the benefits of the printed paper as a digital replica.
Subscribe