I'd say Everton as well, just because they've never been down. I don't care if they take up the top two spots, I'd rather not bounce straight back up, to be honest.
I'd take Wycombe from League One, be a nice story for them and their manager Ainsworth deserves it, yet they probably also lack the financial resources to cause us much bother in the Championship. I don't particularly fancy a "sleeping giant" in Sunderland or Wednesday getting any momentum going in the Championship. In terms of relegation: Everton - Clearly being badly mismanaged, and their financial situation upon relegation could be really precarious. Most contracts are thought not to have relegation clauses, so their wage bill will be very high, and other than Pickford, Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison I'm not sure they have all that many assets clubs might want to buy. Dele Alli has another two years on his deal, and there's plenty of others on big money that they might struggle to shift. Who wants Yerry Mina's £120k p/w contract? A relegated CB who was only fit for a third of Everton's games this season due to repeated injury issues? But maybe they are "too big for the Championship" and would sort themselves out. Newcastle were a total basket case of a club and managed it, Villa were as well. Burnley - I can argue either way. They could be easily re-promoted because their playing style suits the championship, and of the starting XI who beat Watford yesterday, only Vydra, Lennon, Cork and Tarkowski are out of contract. Cornet, McNeil, Pope could all be sold for a profit and that money reinvested, I can't see many other teams wanting those out of contract players so they could be re-signed in the summer. Burnley are always dealing with the prospect of relegation, their finances will likely be in order. On the other hand, they have 10/24 squad members out of contract this summer, including 3/4 strikers. The average squad age is 30, and they have a £60m loan due to be paid back upon relegation (should the new owners enforce it). Their new owners stripped a lot of footballing know-how out of Burnley, and they are yet to appoint a permanent manager. Leeds - Would just be kind of funny? I think any of the three are perfectly capable of sorting themselves out, and equally any of them could be the next Stoke or Swansea (as could Norwich). Everton would at least be a bit novel.
In these days of moneyball, it’s important that we bounce straight back up. Every season out of the premier league leaves the club having to make extra cuts and compromises.
No talent hack https://insidefutbol.com/2022/05/02...oo-and-neither-come-back-richard-keys/557832/ Good Norwich Down, Hope Watford Go Too And Neither Come Back – Richard Keys
The best argument against parachute payments is that a team without external funding can't survive in the Prem even with that safety net?
It's blatant snobbery, self funding clubs like ours shouldn't be allowed in the Foreign billionaire Premier league. Removing parachute payments would only hurt poor clubs like us . I've heard the opposite argument that it's boring that we keep winning the Championship or getting promoted and that's not fair either .
Didn't he get sacked by Sky for remarks about a female ref ? Then worked for Saudi Arabian telly ? Utter bellend
In January 2011, Keys left Sky Sports after making derogatory comments about female assistant referee Sian Massey. His off-air comments about Massey and the fitness of women to officiate at football matches were recorded and leaked. Further clips were leaked showing co-presenter Andy Gray and Keys behaving in a sexist manner.[5]
In terms of what we need to improve next year, if we forget about players coming in for a moment and talk more about style and tactics: I think there was widespread feeling (me included) we needed to improve our defence after the shambolic 19/20 premier league season. Looking at our two Championship promotion winning seasons, we conceded 57 goals (scored 93) in 18/19, which everyone will remember dramatically changed to conceding 36 goals (scoring 75) in 19/20. That change has not translated to the premier league - our 19/20 season saw us concede a massive 75 goals (a mere 26 goals scored) and this season we are at 71 goals conceded (and counting… versus an appalling 22 goals scored). There are no easy answers. Building a solid defence is obviously desirable, but it seems what has cost us more than anything is our attacking shortcomings. I have looked over the last ten years of premier league final tables and: - It’s extremely common to survive conceding up to 70 goals. Every season typically 2-5 teams survive having conceded column in the 60s. - If you concede more than 70 goals, you are very likely to be relegated. Only two teams survived in the last ten seasons (Swansea 15/16, scoring 45 goals; Bournemouth 18/19, scoring 56 goals; though Leeds could also do so this season). - If you concede fewer than 60 goals, you are highly likely to survive. Only one team managed to fail that (Fulham last year - scored 26 goals). - If you score more than 40 goals, even if you concede into the 60s, you are very likely to survive. Only two teams relegated with 40s for/60s against (Newcastle 14/15, 44 for, 65 against; Bournemouth 19/20, 40 for, 65 against). In other words, on a very simplistic gf/ga basis, conceding 70 plus across the season is a death sentence. Below 70, it does not matter too much - though if you can squeeze it below 60 you put yourself in a very strong position to survive. Getting over 40 scored is pretty essential to increasing your chances of survival, but only if the goals conceded column is below 70. Consequently, we are actually not that far off on goals conceded. Next time (fingers crossed) we are in the Premier League, we *only* need to improve by 5-10 goals fewer conceded, or thereabouts. By contrast, we need to improve our attacking by 15-20 goals. So being stronger attacking is the bigger issue and so should be the priority. Of course, we cannot forget about improving the defence, because those 5-10 goals prevented are essential, but we do not actually need to go overboard on tightening the defence in a way which limits our attack because attacking is the bigger problem. All very rudimentary of course, but having previously thought it’s all about defence, I’m feeling like the statistics are showing it’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s all about defence, but only to a starting point, then it’s about the attack. Sadly, this season, we fall short everywhere…
Nice analysis! In terms of goals conceded, we're probably also conceding more because we're not scoring. We spend plenty of time chasing games and having to throw caution to the wind to try and score, which results in the opposite. Score 20 more with the same defence, and I expect we also concede 5 less. (I guess the counter argument here is that teams several goals up against us haven't pushed for more, but still....) In terms of increasing goalscoring, our sheer lack of goalscorers is mind boggling. In nearly two full Premier League seasons, the only players to score 2+ goals in a season are Pukki (10), Pukki (11), Cantwell (7) and Sargent (2). We've been entirely reliant on one player for goals, making us one dimensional and easier to nullify. By contrast, Brentford have 8 players who have scored 2+ goals this season, including 3 players on 4/5 goals. Toney has not been their only threat.
The only prediction I got right was that we needed to sign a striker to chip Inn with goals to help Pukki. An entire season relying solely on Pukki made it very easy to beat us . Smother Pukki and starve him of service and we have nothing to offer. Losing the only creative spark from Buendia and the midfield cover from Skipp killed off any chance of survival. None of the new signings improved our team
Interesting and, like with you, I found it a little surprising that the numbers do not directly place the blame on the defensive fragility that we have looked at critically for a number of seasons
Not directly maybe, but indirectly definitely. The key metric is goal difference. Rob's figures would suggest that you have a good chance of surviving in the EPL if you can keep your GD down to -20 or lower. You can still survive despite leaking goals as long as you score prolifically to compensate. Conversely, even if you find goals hard to come by, you can survive if you keep enough clean sheets. If you can't score, and also leak goals, you have no chance. If Everton survive this season, and Leeds are relegated, 2021--22 will be a perfect illustration of the -20 GD rule of thumb. To illustrate further, these are our figures for the seven seasons we've played in the EPL since 2000: Season GF GA GD 2004-05 42 77 -35 Worthington 2011-12 52 66 -14 Lambert 2012-13 41 58 -17 Hughton 2013-14 28 62 -34 Hughton 2015-16 39 67 -28 Neil 2019-20 26 75 -49 Farke 2021-22 22 71 -49 Farke/Smith (4 games to play) No team with a GD of -20 or better was relegated in those seasons. Our current goals per game stands at 0.65. If we scored double what we have so far this season, i.e. finished the season with 44 goals (1.16 gpg), we would still need to reduce our GA to survive, and only once have we managed that number of goals (2011-12 under Lambert).
Personally I think the midfield is our biggest weakness, we need 2 first team ready players to come in and take the spots of the 3 that are leaving. PLM and McLean can do a job in the championship but we really need to improve. We should either play Sorensen or let him leave because he needs football at his age now, he has always done well for us.
Bingo, we have no control of the game because our midfield a- can't keep the ball, b- score in a brothel, c- position themselves without this our defence is always under pressure and we can't get feed to Pukki who would score a hatful with regular service
