You Jacks have had two tough opponents in your opening games - you'll be fine. We struggled to create anything against a 10 man Hull side! Time will tell if can improve.
You've played Man United and Spurs in your first 2 games, not easy games. But you have too good of a squad to go down, but I think you might do what Newcastle did when they got into Europe, your league form might not be as good, but you still won't go down. As for Norwich, we need to improve a lot.
Fulham and Sunderland look the real losers today. Still no definite picture emerging yet though. Too many new signings bedding into clubs.
Way too early to make any judgements, but an early win is a very reassuring thing! Nice to be mid-table again for two weeks at least!
Agree with that.Give it another three and a pattern may begin to emerge I feel Swansea are in a false position after games against United and Spurs.The onlything I can pick upon is that Sunderland look to be performing badly.Games against Fulham,Saints and Palace should have yielded more than a single point.Now fourth favourite to go down.
All three promoted teams have got a win under their belts, so maybe they won't be the whipping boys they were predicted to be. After you take away the top seven (MU, MC, Chelski, Spuds, Arse, Liv, Everton) I think everyone else is potentially in the mix and I am so glad we got that win.
They are the one team who need to buy before the window closes. Someone who can score goals. Last season they were well organised (after effect of Hodgson) and had Lukaku. That made the difference between being one of the multitude of clubs who just scraped to safety and the comfortable position they actually had. Without him, or someone like him, they look in trouble.
Without a goal after three isn't looking good for The Baggies.Early days but I can see at least one promoted side surviving at the expense of either them or Sunderland.
Big movements in odds to date: WBA from 9/1 down to 4/1. Sunderland from 11/2 to 5/2.That means that the bookies see them as more than twice as likely to go down compared to pre season.Is it justified after three games? Well I think you need to take their performances to date in a wider context. In particular we need to look at their opponents for those matches.Had it been Villa in their position having played Arsenal,Chelsea and Liverpool I think there would have been no movement at all.Sunderland though have lost at home to Fulham and away to Palace,fixtures that most sides might expect to take three or four points from.WBA have failed to score in all three games and despite a creditable point on Merseyside have home defeats against Southampton,who in similar circumstances lost to us and the previously pointless Swans who,despite being a good side take most of their points at The Liberty. I think the next three fixtures are crucial to both WBA and Sunderland,neither of whom have had particularly good transfer windows.If either has less than four points after six games then I think a long,hard winter lies ahead. WBA v Sunderland on 21st looks massive.
Sunderland now shortened to 15/8 and now shorter than Cardiff.I think we may have our first serious candidate in addition to the three promoted sides to join the mini league.Next week will be interesting with WBAvSunderland.
Yep, biggun. Sunderland have shown some glimpses of quality but been pretty wobbly at the back, and West Brom haven't even started their season yet. Both have a tough set of games after that too, so the loser could be starting to feeling nervous.
Right,so Sunderland were soundly trounced by yon Baggies.There looks like trouble on Wearside and they really have nowhere to go.Fletcher their only real threat out injured for a while and PDC looking clueless,so I think we have our first non promotion team candidate.Their odds have now backed to 13/10 and they are second favourites to Palace (4/9 on) Hull now 6/4 and Cardiff 9/4.Although Palace and Cardiff don't play until today I think the odds have factored in defeats and any other result may show as a drifting of the odds. Norwich are 3/1 - the shortest odds since the season began.In fact the table unusually shows bunching at either end.At the top,given a draw in Manchester and no more than a draw for the two North London clubs(admittedly unlikely) just two points would over the top eight from Chelsea down to Saints. Likewise at the bottom From Villa in 12th to Fulham in 18th just two points.So,few strong pointers to what might be happening. My jitters about City are not actually founded on anything logical,it's just a gut feeling that things are not gelling as we expected.But it is unusual for me to feel that way.I still think we will stay up but that is more based on the maths.My early guess is this Relegated : Sunderland,Palace. Third spot the loser in the mini league between Hull,Cardiff,Norwich,Fulham,Hammers and possibly one other.Points required 40,or possibly 39 + GD.
A little more movement after today's games.Palace now shorted to 1/3,Sunderland 6/5.We are out to 19/5.
I think we have seen enough to make an analysis of this season's fight to beat the drop.It's looking a bit like last year in as much as we appear to have two really strong contenders emerging.Cast as this years QPR and Reading we have: Crystal Palace. 1/7 on for the drop.It's difficult to see where the points are going to come from.They gamely went to Anfield and fielded an attacking formation.It ended up with a 3-1 beating.My guess is that Holloway will win far more friends than points with his strategy.His only points so far have come from..... Sunderland.(Evens) Paulo Di Canio nailed his colours firmly to the mast and signed a dozen players.So whether it's Kevin Ball who takes over permanently,or,far more likely,somebody else,they are going to have to work with the players they have.The problem is Sunderland have had the opportunities against other teams in the relegation mix and have ended up with a single point.Already six points and a big GD from 17th place it looks a mountain to climb for The Mackems.The sacking of O'Neill and the PDC experiment is looking like a catestrophic error of judgement. So the fight looks to be avoiding 18th place.Nobody yet looking like playing the part of last season's Wigan.The contenders: Hull City 5/2 To me these odds don't look generous at all.Steve Bruce has got his team looking well organised and while a couple of results have come from dodgy penalties they do not look out of their depth in the Premiership. Cardiff 9/4 After a bright start Cardiff have faded badly in recent games.An away win at Fulham was the bright spot but they don't look like a team that is going to pick up the home wins that they will need to survive. Norwich 7/2 Things were looking a trifle dodgy until last week but the result at Stoke eased that considerably.we still look lightweight up front but I have a feeling that Hooper may change that when he is fully bedded in. Fulham 4/1 Another team that looked dodgy and three points against Stoke has improved their position a lot.Despite having Berbatov they look short of goals Stoke 9/2 It was a bit of a surprise to see Stoke top half before our visit.Their display of ineptitude against us though was quite shocking,not least of all it seems to Mark Hughes.Yesterday's visit to Fulham was the ideal opportunity to bounce back against fellow 18th place contenders.They didn't take it and now hover just outside the bottom three. West Ham 6/1 The odds look generous to me.No doubt factoring in Carroll's return but they don't look like a side going anywhere fast and my view is that they will figure in the mix throughout the season.Unless they can win at WHL today they remain bottom three.Good luck with that one Sam. It's still hard to predict the 18th place points total as early as this.West Ham who currently occupy that spot have 5 points from six games.It seems likely using my formula from last season that one team will fail to better the point per game average and my guess is still 39/40 points for safety.
I'm really not sure I agree, Sunderland looked good in the first half and could well have been winning 2 or 3 nil I think Palace are going down but there are two further places still up for grabs
