Who is going down...

[tonyh29]

So with 14 / 15 games gone and Arsenal already champions

who do people think are going down ...

I'm going for

Sunderland

Cardiff

Norwich

Palace will probably finish their honeymoon period soon and could still go but Norwich just leak too many goals and I think it will count against them

[The_Rev]

I'm going out on a limb here, but Manchester United. 

 

If not, Palace, Norwich and Sunderland. 

[Mantis]

Sunderland

Hull

Palace

[villaajax]

I'm going out on a limb here, but Manchester United.

 

 

If they got relegated.

[Christ_JM]

Lol manure

[Con]

Goals are needed to win games. 

 

Which of these teams won't be able to score 2 goals per game in consecutive games when they need it?

 

team (goals scored to date)

 

Sunderland 12

Hull 12

Crystal Palace 10

West Ham 13

Fulham 12

Cardiff 11

 

These are the teams to watch.

 

Hull - no strikers but defence good, and have goals from midfield. and real quality there - Huddlestone, Brady, Livermore. if they can get another striker in the winter transfer window they'll be fine. 6th from bottom.

 

Crystal Palace - Chamakh and Jerome are showing terrific form. Pulis may get money in January to strengthen. Bannan is Pulis' new Delap who will cause havoc just blatantly crossing at every opportunity. Jedinak is a good leader with fight in him. 5th from bottom.

 

Cardiff - Wittingham will do for them what Bannan will do for Palace. provide enough quality service for strikers to feed on. Mutch looks like he will be important for them. 4th from bottom.

 

Fulham - central defence past its prime. nobody like Huddlestone, Bannan or Wittingham in midfield to deliver the goods. Bent and Berbatov are two temperamental forwards. relegated. 

 

West Ham - no fit strikers.  not convinced by the defence or midfield. Nolan is past his prime now. relegated.

 

Sunderland - goals from midfield, yes, real quality with Giacerrini and Johnston but they are luxury players, not ideal in a relegation scrap.  O'Shea and Brown are leaders, good for a scrap, but lack pace to maintain a high line when they want to push forward. no strikers. relegated.

 

Edited December 8, 2013 by Con

[Isa]

Very difficult to call. At this moment in time I'd go for (in order):

Sunderland

Palace

Cardiff

I'd absolutely love West Ham to drop though. Really despise them.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Isa

[Rovers13]

Goals are needed to win games.

Which of these teams won't be able to score 2 goals per game in consecutive games when they need it?

team (goals scored to date)

Sunderland 12

Hull 12

Crystal Palace 10

West Ham 13

Fulham 12

Cardiff 11

These are the teams to watch.

Hull - no strikers but defence good, and have goals from midfield. and real quality there - Huddlestone, Brady, Livermore. if they can get another striker in the winter transfer window they'll be fine. 6th from bottom.

Crystal Palace - Chamakh and Jerome are showing terrific form. Pulis may get money in January to strengthen. Bannan is Pulis' new Delap who will cause havoc just blatantly crossing at every opportunity. Jedinak is a good leader with fight in him. 5th from bottom.

Cardiff - Wittingham will do for them what Bannan will do for Palace. provide enough quality service for strikers to feed on. Mutch looks like he will be important for them. 4th from bottom.

Fulham - central defence past its prime. nobody like Huddlestone, Bannan or Wittingham in midfield to deliver the goods. Bent and Berbatov are two temperamental forwards. relegated.

West Ham - no fit strikers. not convinced by the defence or midfield. Nolan is past his prime now. relegated.

Sunderland - goals from midfield, yes, real quality with Giacerrini and Johnston but they are luxury players, not ideal in a relegation scrap. O'Shea and Brown are leaders, good for a scrap, but lack pace to maintain a high line when they want to push forward. no strikers. relegated.

The year we went down we scored the sixth highest number of goals. The relegated sides are typically (though not always) the ones the worst at the back. Also, fletcher, altidore and borini are hardly no strikers.

[Genie]

Sunderland

Hull

Palace

^^ my guess too.

Utd will finish in the top 6

[Rodders]

Palace

Fulham

West Ham

[rosenthal]

We'll see how they fare against you guys today, but Spurs recently played Fulham and they looked a far more balanced and fighting team under Meulensteen than Jol.

I think they'll stay up, they have both quality and fighters in their side, Jol had just gotten stale and put out a far too soft team game in and game out.

Can't play with Ruiz, Taraabt and Berbatov at same time - all while a poor form and lazy version Darren Bent stand still up top.

 

Only team i'm confident is going down are Crystal Palace. Sunderland has a lot of work ahead of them as well, big risk there with a very weak midfield.

Hull, Norwich, Cardiff are others I can see involved. Newly promoted tend to fall down the table as the season progress.

[Electric Avenue]

18. West Ham

19. Cardiff

20. Sunderland

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Sunderland, Palace, Norwich.

[PaulC]

Its a difficult one. A few weeks ago i was certain Palace would go. Sam is messing things up at West Ham and they have a tough run in so woudn't be surprised if they went. Cardiff are on a dodgy run. Sunderland have been playing well but not getting the points so think they will pick up. 

[Con]

 

Goals are needed to win games.

Which of these teams won't be able to score 2 goals per game in consecutive games when they need it?

team (goals scored to date)

Sunderland 12

Hull 12

Crystal Palace 10

West Ham 13

Fulham 12

Cardiff 11

These are the teams to watch.

Hull - no strikers but defence good, and have goals from midfield. and real quality there - Huddlestone, Brady, Livermore. if they can get another striker in the winter transfer window they'll be fine. 6th from bottom.

Crystal Palace - Chamakh and Jerome are showing terrific form. Pulis may get money in January to strengthen. Bannan is Pulis' new Delap who will cause havoc just blatantly crossing at every opportunity. Jedinak is a good leader with fight in him. 5th from bottom.

Cardiff - Wittingham will do for them what Bannan will do for Palace. provide enough quality service for strikers to feed on. Mutch looks like he will be important for them. 4th from bottom.

Fulham - central defence past its prime. nobody like Huddlestone, Bannan or Wittingham in midfield to deliver the goods. Bent and Berbatov are two temperamental forwards. relegated.

West Ham - no fit strikers. not convinced by the defence or midfield. Nolan is past his prime now. relegated.

Sunderland - goals from midfield, yes, real quality with Giacerrini and Johnston but they are luxury players, not ideal in a relegation scrap. O'Shea and Brown are leaders, good for a scrap, but lack pace to maintain a high line when they want to push forward. no strikers. relegated.

The year we went down we scored the sixth highest number of goals. The relegated sides are typically (though not always) the ones the worst at the back. Also, fletcher, altidore and borini are hardly no strikers.

 

 

Forgot about Fletcher.

 

Good points.

 

You can escape being lowest scorers in the league if your defence is mid-table standard (as Villa also showed in the 2011/12 season).

 

If you look at the stats below, very often it's two teams who are very low scoring, plus one team that scored well, which were relegated due to an abysmal defence.  Although last couple of years defence has been more important.

 

I may look at this more later as the Villa game is about to start.

 

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/league-table.html

 

Year / Lowest scorers position

 

1992/93   2nd, 3rd, 8th

 

1993/94   3rd, 3rd, 8th

 

1994/95   1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th

 

1995/96   1st, 4th, 5th

 

1996/97   2nd, 3rd, 15th

 

1997/98   3rd, 4th, 5th

 

1998/99   1st, 3rd, 8th

 

1999/00   1st, 3rd, 6th

 

2000/01   1st, 2nd, 6th

 

2001/02   2nd, 3rd, 7th

 

2002/03   1st, 2nd, 6th

 

2003/04   1st, 2nd, 9th

 

2004/05   4th, 6th, 8th

 

2005/06   1st, 2nd, 3rd

 

2006/07   2nd, 3rd, 4th

 

2007/08   1st, 6th, 11th

 

2008/09   1st, 4th, 9th 

 

2009/10   2nd, 2nd, 9th

 

2010/11   1st, 3rd, 12th

 

2011/12   3rd, 9th, 11th

 

2012/13   1st, 5th, 8th

[VillaChris]

Sunderland are a bit adrift now, 5 points off even Palace and Fulham.

 

Ironically I've been quite impressed with Sunderland under Poyet, they should've beaten us and could've got draws against Spurs and Chelsea quite easily. With a kinder run of games over xmas I can see them getting a win or two which will draw them back in to things.

 

No idea who the 3 will be, I still think Palace are certs but other two positions wide open.

 

What's clear is that a team will go down with a higher than usual points tally, could be like SHA who went down with 39 points in 2010/11. This seems a similar season given how competitive it is.

[Mantis]

What's clear is that a team will go down with a higher than usual points tally, could be like SHA who went down with 39 points in 2010/11. This seems a similar season given how competitive it is.

Not necessarily. I thought it'd be like that last season but Wigan went down with 36 points which is fairly average.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Mantis

[VillaChris]

80 ish points will probably win the league this season, usually it's 90.

 

When the top teams drop more points that usually increased the teams at the bottom points tally. Wouldn't shock me if a team went down on 40 points.

[The_Rev]

80 ish points will probably win the league this season, usually it's 90.

 

When the top teams drop more points that usually increased the teams at the bottom points tally. Wouldn't shock me if a team went down on 40 points.

 

 

Not strictly true, while champions have ended up with 90 on a handful of occasions, usually mid 80s will see you win the league.  89 points is the highest total a team has ever got and not taken the title and that was the year that it was decided on goal difference (Aguerooooooooooooooooo!) 

 

1995/96 - 82 (79)

1996/97 - 75 (69)

1997/98 - 78 (78)

1998/99 - 79 (79)

1999/00 - 91 (74)

2000/01 - 80 (71)

2001/02 - 87 (81)

2002/03 - 83 (79)

2003/04 - 90 (80)

2004/05 - 95 (84)

2005/06 - 91 (84)

2006/07 - 89 (84)

2007/08 - 87 (86)

2008/09 - 90 (87)

2009/10 - 86 (86)

2010/11 - 80 (72)

2011/12 - 89 (89)

2012/13 - 89 (79)

 

There are your numbers.  First number is what the Champions ended the season with, number in brackets is what would have been needed to win the league based on how many points the runner up got.  Goes back to 95/96 which was the first season in English football with 3 points for a win and a 20 team top division and 80 points has been enough to take the title on ten occasions in that time period.  Arsenal are currently on for 89 points if they keep collecting them at their current rate. Based on the points per game Liverpool, Chelsea and City are collecting then the runners up might just about crack 80.  I agree that there will be a more even points spread this season though and I welcome it with open arms.  That period where Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool were miles ahead of everybody else was bad for the league and I am glad it has been disrupted. 

[chappy]

 

 

 

Crystal Palace - Chamakh and Jerome are showing terrific form. Pulis may get money in January to strengthen. Bannan is Pulis' new Delap who will cause havoc just blatantly crossing at every opportunity. Jedinak is a good leader with fight in him. 5th from bottom.

 

 

 

 

I don't understand this sentence at all. What does blatantly crossing even mean? As opposed to surreptitiously crossing?