Who else do you think is (or will be) in this relegation battle come the end of the season? Will we still be down there by April? Watching Swansea today and the way they are playing against Liverpool, I don't think we can rule them out. Sunderland? Stoke? Fulham?
I'm starting to worry about Villa a little bit, they look like they could get a few freak results this season. I don't think we should be including them in our 'three worse teams.'
My prediction before the start of the season was QPR, Reading and Villa to go down. I don't think I need to change that yet, but us, Sunderland, Wigan and Norwich could well be among them. I can't see Swansea getting anywhere near a relegation battle unless they go on a really bad run.
Reading, QPR, Villa, Norwich, Sunderland... Southampton. Reading and Norwich don't have enough quality, if they can play hard as a team with strong organisation, they could be fine, but still feel they lack enough quality in the team to rule either of them out of the relegation battle. Villa are in a bit of the same boat a touch, their team can be a bit disjointed, they lack real quality without Bent on form, they also could bring it together though. QPR have a lot of the building blocks of a good team, but a lot of the building blocks of a bad team, hard to see which way they will go, could be either. Sunderland don't have enough about them going forward unless Sessegnon is playing like Iniesta or Larrson is scoring 30 yard free kicks, and they are suspect defensively. Stoke are too strong at home and too difficult to play away to be included for me. Wigan have proved time and time again they have what it takes to dig themselves out of trouble, doesn't mean they will but I won't include them personally. Swansea and West Ham both lack quality in some areas, but do have some good players, and they both have fine-tuned styles of football which they know perfectly and can win them games, and they already have a good amount of points. As for us, a lot of talent, but question marks in some areas and we don't make it difficult enough for other teams to get results against us. But we also have potential to turn things around, which hopefully we're already in the process of doing. This feels like a year where there isn't a team where you would say "They are definitely going to have huge struggles", although plenty were saying that about us a few weeks ago. No Wolves, no Blackburn, no Derby, no Pompey. Maybe Reading.
You love a long reply don't you I agree with all you said though. I think QPR in my eyes are still the most likely to have struggles, but even then, they have potential.
It would be even longer if my keyboard wasn't broken to all buggery! Takes me three times as long to type. Hopefully Redknapp takes QPR the ways of the the last couple of South Coast teams he's managed, rather than the last couple of London teams. Nothing against QPR, just self-preservation!
Stoke wont go down! You mad, theyve conceded 1 at home all season, to Man City, the game finished 1-1. nuff said, theyre too good at home.
Anyone below Stoke really. I don't think that Newcastle will be anywhere near the relegation zone come the end of the season, but I'm not ruling them out just yet. I can see them losing away to Stoke this week, and that will put them in even more trouble. And between now and Jan, they have a few tricky matches. Their home games vs Wigan and QPR are therefore very important for them. Of their next eight games, I can easily see them losing the other six of them (Stoke, Fulham, Man Utd and Arsenal away; Man City & Everton home). So if they don't beat Wigan and QPR...
Haha, I was thinking that too. But I think they really, really missed Cabaye today, he is a genuinely world class player. As soon as he is fit, they will look much better.
Thank you kind sir, unfortunately I have a laptop. I have a keyboard kicking around from an old PC, but it does not resolve my problems completely. The main problem being that either the keyboard's driver configuration has somehow been scuppered to the point that pressing keys results in spurious characters, or the actual keyboard has somehow jammed or has been shunted out of position. The big issue being that it thinks I'm almost always jamming the enter key down, so I am fighting an uphill battle to keep my posts from being signed off by 150 lines of empty space, as well as when I click a link it frequently opens 50 of whatever I clicked. Fun! I fear I will be mugged out of the warranty, even though I bought it about two weeks ago, so probably off to the repair shop to return with a bill twice it's worth!
