Relegation is a horrible, lonely nightmarish experience that causes so much stress, anxiety and sense of dread for many footy fans. When one’s beloved club is teetering o the brink, of ‘moving down’, many sleepless nights follow. This season is one of the closet dogfights in years, only adding to the drama. To stay in the Premiership, teams will have to beg, cheat (of course) and steal to earn the right to stay up. There is no more messing around. This is when the real men stand up and are counted.
Something quite amazing has developed as the season has worn on, and now only 6 or 7 games remain in the season: staggeringly, even as far up as 10th in the table, Fulham, are sitting on 39 points and are still not entirely safe. Of course it’s very unlikely that they will go down, but even so at this late stage of the season there is normally only 4 or 5 teams fighting for their lives. So who then is going down?
I think Reading (23 points) and Queens Park Rangers (24points) are doomed and there is no way back for them. A massive 7 points adrift leaves a mountain way too steep to climb, but who will the unlucky 3rd team be? Of course that’s the million dollar question that literally will be worth millions to the teams beating the trap door.
Personally, I think Fulham, Southampton, West Ham, and Newcastle have more than enough quality to get the required points to avoid the drop, so let’s take them out. That leaves us with Norwich City (35), Stoke City (34), Aston Villa (33), Sunderland (31) and Wigan (31) – a mere four points separates them for that dreaded final relegation spot.
There will plenty of twists and turns ,drama, and sheer emotion before the end of the season and thus we finally find out how the Premiership’s finished table will look like. To try and work this out, I will go through every team’s remaining fixtures game by game, putting what I think the results will be for each.
Norwich – Arsenal lose 4-1(0), Reading win 1-0(3),Stoke draw 2-2(1),Aston Villa draw 1-1(1),West Brom win 2-1(3),Man City lose 4-0(0) Total 40
Stoke – Man Utd lose 3-1(0),QPR draw 0-0(1),Norwich draw 2-2(1),Sunderland win 2-0(3),Spurs lose 3-2(0),Southampton draw 1-1(1) Total 40
Aston Villa – Fulham win 4-3(3),Man Utd lose 2-0(0),Sunderland draw 1-1(1),Norwich draw 1-1(1),Chelsea lose 3-0(0),Wigan draw 2-2(1) Total 39
Sunderland – Newcastle draw 1-1(1),Everton draw 0-0(1),Aston Villa draw 1-1(1),Stoke lose 2-0(0),Southampton draw 0-0(1),Spurs lose 2-1(0) Total 35
Wigan – Man City lose 3-1(0), West Ham draw 2-2(1),Spurs lose 2-1(0),West Brom draw 2-2(1),Swansea City win 3-2(3),Arsenal lose 1-0(0),Aston Villa draw 2-2 (1) Total 37
My relegation table:
Norwich 40
Stoke 40
Aston Villa 39
Wigan 37
Sunderland 35 Down
QPR Down
Reading Down
There are lots of massive fixtures upcoming. I think Sunderland need 3 points against Newcastle this week, otherwise it’s curtains for them. They have been dropping like a stone for weeks now, but I think they’re only likely to get a 1-1 draw which isn’t enough this time of year. Many might be a little surprised by my final table, but after lots of drama-filled matches I think it will be Wigan and Sunderland battling down to the wire. In the end it will be the newly appointed Sunderland boss Paulo Di Canio in charge of that unlucky team occupying the 3rd and final relegation place. So bye-bye, Sunderland.
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