The season is drawing to a close and we are starting to see the potential candidates for relegation. With the Premier League now being worth a fortune to teams in TV rights alone, everyone will be looking to stay up this season.
Aston Villa look all but relegated after flirting with the bottom 3 for the past 5 seasons. It looks as though that has finally caught up with them, but here we will analise the teams involved and their chances of staying up.
The general consensus is that the teams in the fight at the moment are, Newcastle, Norwich, Sunderland, Swansea and Crystal Palace. I think any team above them have enough points to avoid the drop, the accepted figure is 40 points and above Crystal Palace is Bournemouth with 37 points so lets stick with this list.
Newcastle United
Starting at the bottom, Newcastle, they have recently took a bold decision to sack their manager and change for Rafa Benitez. There are not many instances where managerial changes this late in the season, have actually paid off for clubs looking to avoid the drop. Rafa had a tough start as Newcastle manager but the team did appear to have a little bit more to offer defensively while posing a small threat upfront. This, against the Premier League champions elect Leicester City. Although their form is not great, they are not favorites to go down by any means, their only grace for this could be their game in hand over teams around them.
With the game in hand and the teams they play, their safety is in their own hands. With ties against Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Swansea and Aston Villa I would suggest the new manager Rafa can help the team escape from relegation. If they don’t, expect to see Rafa make a quick U turn as I cannot see him wanting to manage a team in the championship.
Norwich City
We will move on to Norwich City now, who have only won 1 game in their last 12. This win came at home back on the 2nd of January with a 1-0 home win against Southampton. Since then only 2 draws, it is this form that has seen them plunge to the depths of the bottom 3. Norwich have only won 6 games all season only 2 coming away from home, these would be my favorites outside of Aston Villa, to make the drop into the championship.
They did buy a few players, including Steven Naismith, during the January transfer window, however this has not helped with results. It is starting to look like they need a miracle.
Sunderland
Wouldn’t Newcastle fans just love it if they somehow saved themselves from the drop and send Suderland down with them? Sunderland have the opportunity to help themselves with a 6 pointer against bitter rivals Newcastle this weekend. Rafa has stated he doesn’t like Big Sam, this was after a gesture a few years ago when Rafa suggested game over early on in the game 3-0 against Big Sam’s Bolton. The rivalry will continue into a relegation battle and I know Big Sam would love to welcome Rafa back to the Premier League with a loss in the derby to plunge them deeper into relegation troubles.
However, since the Adam Johnson saga, Sunderland look as though they are in disarray with their only wins the last 6 have come against doomed Aston Villa and Manchester United who are not a massive scalp anymore. If you follow the betting, Sunderland would be going down, but as we know football is not that cut and dry.
Swansea City
Swansea are in this list mainly on the number of points they have, and although they are 8 points clear of Sunderland, they are not mathematically clear. They have found some really good form of late win 3 wins in their last 6, so I would suggest Swansea will have enough, for this season at least, to save themselves from relegation.
Crystal Palace
Without a win this year, Crystal Palace have been in a very worrying nose dive to 8 points ahead of Sunderland and level on points with Swansea. They had a very welcome distraction from their worries with a few wins in the FA Cup and an FA Cup semi final at Wembley against a beatable Watford. We could very well see Crystal Palace concentrate all their efforts on this game and let their league form suffer even more.
Crystal Palace have to play against most of the teams below them and I feel as though this could be their undoing. Should they lose these games, they would be in a dire situation. I hope they do well in the FA Cup as seeing a team in a relegation dog fight, in the FA Cup final would be a fantastic thing for football. Especially if Leicester manage to win the league.
Predictions
EverydayTips predictions for relegation would buck the trend a little bit compared to betting patterns but isn’t that what tips are all about? I believe the teams to go down will be as follows:
- Aston Villa (only a couple of games away from being finished)
- Norwich
- Crystal Palace
The other teams will survive, at least for this season, but don’t be surprised to see the same candidates in and around the drop zone next may.
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