With the Premier League season entering its final stretch, the battle to avoid the drop is about to step up a few notches as teams desperately try to stay up and reap the benefits of the highly lucrative new TV deal coming to top-flight clubs next season. It’s time to assess the candidates that could slip down into the Championship.
Given that the general gauge of survival in the Premier League is to achieve around 40 points, it could be argued that West Bromwich Albion, Watford, Everton and Bournemouth are all pretty much guaranteed to stay up, and it would take a catastrophic implosion in form for any of them to fail now.
That leaves six other teams battling it out for the last three spots above the drop zone.
Crystal Palace
Palace started the season in excellent fashion and at one point some pundits were even tipping them to push for a European spot. But now Alan Pardew’s side are in a dire spell of form and if something doesn’t change soon they could plummet further down the table. With some of their closest rivals beginning to show fighting spirit and tough fixtures coming up against title contenders and relegation battlers, things aren’t looking too good for the Eagles. The key to their survival could be for Emmanuel Adebayor to rediscover the goal scoring form that led him to earn the African Footballer of the Year award in 2008.
Swansea
Swansea have had their worst season to date since joining the Premier League elite and it resulted in them sacking their once well-regarded manager, Garry Monk. However, since Francesco Guidolin took over they have had an upturn in form. The Icelandic playmaker, Gylfi Sigurdsson, has come into his stride at just the right time. He has been at the heart of the resurgence and his passion should spur the rest of his teammates on. The way they are playing now, and the quality available in their squad suggests that the Swans will still be in the top flight next season.
Sunderland
Sunderland looked all but doomed from the start of the season, with many suggesting that they didn’t have enough quality in the squad to survive. The appointment of Sam Allardyce has brought some hope to the fans for a couple of reasons. The reasons were that he has never been in charge of a team that has been relegated from the Premier League and he made a few excellent acquisitions to bolster the squad in the January transfer window. These factors, accompanied with the fact that Jermain Defoe has a knack for scoring critical goals, would normally ensure safety in the league. But this has been a highly unpredictable season where nothing is certain.
Norwich
A lot of the teams find it hard to make the transition to the top flight after promotion from the Championship. But Leicester City looked as though they weren’t going to cut it last time out and produced a great escape which should offer Canaries fans a glimmer of hope. On the other side of the coin, however, a large portion of this Norwich squad are the same players who failed to avoid the drop two seasons ago. They also have one of the most toothless attacks in the league, with very little goal threat. It seems like it would take a similar miracle to the one that happened to Leicester for Norwich to stay up.
Newcastle
With the quality in Newcastle’s squad and the amount of money they have spent in recent transfer windows, it seems crazy to be discussing them as a relegation-threatened team. But they are in a dire situation, and it turns out Steve McClaren was not the answer to the problems that they had faced last season. There may just be enough time for a different manager to turn things around with this crop of talented players, but the board need to make a move soon. Reports suggest that the club may try to sign Rafa Benitez or David Moyes. But whether or not such prestigious managers would join if they thought they couldn’t save the club is another question. If things stay how they are, Newcastle will go down but a change of manager may just get them out of trouble.
Aston Villa
Villa have been doomed for a long time and the early season change of management where Tim Sherwood was replaced by Remi Garde did nothing to help their survival plea. Some bookies are offering odds of 1/1000 for the West Midlands side to go down, which shows just how calamitous their situation is. In fact, for the Villains to stay in the Premier League they would probably have to win all of their remaining games. This doesn’t seem likely for a team that have appeared resigned to failure for many months now.
There is still a hefty chunk of the campaign left, but it is clear from this analysis that the teams already wallowing in the bottom three have the toughest tasks ahead of them. But in a season that has had more twists and turns than a helter skelter, anything could still happen. This enormously exciting period will go down in Premier League history and is not one to be missed.
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