2024/25 Relegation Battle (Without Everton!)

[ToffeeScot]

Well yeah, but that's a bit of a reach isn't it? I would say it was sacking him that was the issue because I have no idea how they could have come to the conclusion that 16th was an unacceptable position for a newly promoted team to be in 25% of the way through the season, but as with any manager who ends up losing their job, I suppose you could go all the way back to them being appointed and say it can't have been a good appointment in the first place because otherwise they wouldn't have ended up getting sacked.

I don't think Leicester were good enough to stay up but I think that the whole season has been a series of mistakes that started with the appointment of Cooper.

 

[ToffeeTim]

I see the Sky graphic is back out about who might go down. With us in it obviously.

This graphic disappeared for a few weeks when United and Spurs were below us. Back out now though.

To be honest I'm not bothered about that. It will just remind everyone how we are in no trouble whatsoever. A 15 point gap with 11 to play will just show everyone how daft it is to include us in the conversation.

 

[neil999]

Tbh Ipswich should be the worst team in this league..crazy there are 2 teams below them..hoping wolves go on a terrible run.. be boring otherwise

 

[PITA]

Back in 2014/2015 Leicester had 19 points after 29 games and stayed up with 41 points. Their revival started with a win against WHU. Will history repeat itself

No.

 

[Yarrgh]

Tbh Ipswich should be the worst team in this league..crazy there are 2 teams below them..hoping wolves go on a terrible run.. be boring otherwise

You have actually seen Southampton? Apart from when they played us of course.

Some absolute garbage in this league. How we were rolling in the mire with them is a damning verdict on how we have been run badly. I hope never to see a relegation thread anywhere outside of the World Football sub-forum next season.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

Think we’ve been very fortunate the past few years with just how bad the eventual bottom 3 have been. It’s allowed us to go through a horrid patch both on and off the pitch and survive. If it happened 10 years ago I suspect we’d have been down.

People often say this, I'm not so sure myself.

I figure every team play eachother twice.

Last season we earned 48 points. 36 the season before that. And 39 before that.

Taking our lowest total there - very few teams will have gone down in the 30+ years of the Prem with 36 points. I make it only Newcastle and West Ham in the last 25 or so years.

So while it might feel lucky, particularly last season and this given how bad the bottom 3 have been - we'll have earned well enough points to be clear any season.

I think we've been safe this season since beating Crystal Palace. Part of that is factoring in how bad the bottom 3 are, so I kinda get the shout - just not sure 'We've been lucky the bottom 3 so bad' when we've ultimately earned the points generally required to stay up 95% of the time.

 

[Tony’s Carp]

People often say this, I'm not so sure myself.

I figure every team play eachother twice.

Last season we earned 48 points. 36 the season before that. And 39 before that.

Taking our lowest total there - very few teams will have gone down in the 30+ years of the Prem with 36 points. I make it only Newcastle and West Ham in the last 25 or so years.

So while it might feel lucky, particularly last season and this given how bad the bottom 3 have been - we'll have earned well enough points to be clear any season.

I think we've been safe this season since beating Crystal Palace. Part of that is factoring in how bad the bottom 3 are, so I kinda get the shout - just not sure 'We've been lucky the bottom 3 so bad' when we've ultimately earned the points generally required to stay up 95% of the time.

I agree with this, this season and last season have had poor teams at the bottom but nonetheless we've done it under our own steam.

Also think it's maybe also the case that the eventual bottom three are always pretty much by definition really crap but the last few years we've maybe just been paying attention more because we've been too close for comfort ourselves. I certainly wasn't sweating games involving relegation scrappers 5 or 6 years ago so I couldn't really tell you how much better or worse those teams were than Ipswich or Leicester.

 

[Timbucktoo]

The teams coming up next season look garbage as well. Leicester, Leeds and Burnley to trade places every year for the next decade.

It certainly looks like there`ll be teams coming back up that were up in recent seasons. Leeds look like they get there automatically, Burnley have a seriously good defensive record and if they could start banging in some goals they`ll give Leeds a run for top spot. Sheffield United might grab the playoff spot, but that becomes a bit of a lottery and an unfancied team can sneak promotion through the playoffs. The bottom 3 in the PL this season have been so far out of their depth this season that if they end up at the sharp end of the championship, it`ll just highlight the gulf between the divisions and that the clubs getting their parachute payments are getting too much of an advantage for that first season after relegation. The game needs to have different clubs coming up and competing even for 3 or 4 seasons and not just having the same 3 going down to be replaced with 3 that have gone down the season before.

 

[windymiller]

The only team in the relegation scrap left to worry about is Southampton, if they can’t somehow manage to scrape a couple of points together between now and may, we will have lost to officially the worst top flight team ever.

Did we drop points to Derby in their record breaking season?

 

[catcherintherye]

Well yeah, but that's a bit of a reach isn't it? I would say it was sacking him that was the issue because I have no idea how they could have come to the conclusion that 16th was an unacceptable position for a newly promoted team to be in 25% of the way through the season, but as with any manager who ends up losing their job, I suppose you could go all the way back to them being appointed and say it can't have been a good appointment in the first place because otherwise they wouldn't have ended up getting sacked.

I actually think they should have kept Cooper, but the argument against his wasn't really on results, but on performances. Like if you look at their Xg they were quite lucky to have the points they did.

I sort of think getting rid of him was a reasonable call, but going to RVN was an awful decision, indicative of a lot of muddled thinking by teams. In fairness we did similar with Lampard.

I have to say as well,.there seems to be a real arrogance at teams who get promoted. I remember reading press out of Burnley prior to last season from close to the club saying things like the very minimum expectation would be that they would not be in a relegation dogfight. Like as a worst case scenario they would have 45 points or whatever. You see similar with Leeds now.

How I'm all for some positivity but it has to be at least tinged with a bit of realism. Anyway I think Leicester felt a bit like that with Cooper. That they would otherwise be 10th with any other manager, rather than yours basically hoping for a miracle to stay up.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

Swindon Town are probably grateful that there have been so many terrible relegated sides in recent years

It takes the focus away from their awful 1993/94 season

Even we gubbed them that season, and we almost got relegated too!

 

[DanB90]

The only frustrating thing about the last 6 or 7 weeks, is that despite building a 15 (FIFTEEN) point gap to the bottom 3, and putting together a 7 game unbeaten run, we are still 16th in the table !

Feel like we deserve a bit more from the effort we've put in recently. But still plenty of time to move up a few places.

You can thank Sean Dyche for that.

 

[Lanolin]

It certainly looks like there`ll be teams coming back up that were up in recent seasons. Leeds look like they get there automatically, Burnley have a seriously good defensive record and if they could start banging in some goals they`ll give Leeds a run for top spot. Sheffield United might grab the playoff spot, but that becomes a bit of a lottery and an unfancied team can sneak promotion through the playoffs. The bottom 3 in the PL this season have been so far out of their depth this season that if they end up at the sharp end of the championship, it`ll just highlight the gulf between the divisions and that the clubs getting their parachute payments are getting too much of an advantage for that first season after relegation. The game needs to have different clubs coming up and competing even for 3 or 4 seasons and not just having the same 3 going down to be replaced with 3 that have gone down the season before.

I think the rhetoric about this over the last few weeks has got a little bit out of hand to be honest. Loads of clubs have come up in recent years and had a good go in the PL. You're not going that far back to find Villa and Newcastle in the Championship and they've both qualified for the CL since coming back up. Forest could do the same, and Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton, Fulham etc have all established themselves again. There obviously is a gap between the PL and the Championship - that's the whole point of having divisions really - but I don't buy this stuff about it being completely impossible to bridge it when you come up. One thing that's been ignored a bit is that both Ipswich this year and Luton last year have come up with squads full of players who played with them further down the pyramid. Clubs like that are always going to find it very hard to compete at the top level.

 

[Gilbert..]

Did we drop points to Derby in their record breaking season?

No, amazingly as we usually oblige. They beat Newcastle as their only win. Beat them home and away.
We had a good season. Finished 5th

 

[windymiller]

No, amazingly as we usually oblige. They beat Newcastle as their only win. Beat them home and away.
We had a good season. Finished 5th

Right then, @Loadsofchemistry is right, we need Southampton to pick up points against someone other than us so we don't end up the wrong kind of footnote!