neatly sums up the picture I think....
Premier League relegation odds: Which three teams are going down this season?
By Alex Keble
09:39 · WED April 19, 2023
We are officially in run-in territory, and fittingly the last few weeks have seen the re-emergence of the Premier League’s mid-table.
Crystal Palace’s three consecutive wins under Roy Hodgson and a surprise flurry of victories for Bournemouth, coupled with West Ham and Wolves predictably progressing towards the mean, has placed a seal around the bottom five.
It will almost certainly be three of Southampton, Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Everton and Leeds who drop into the
Sky Bet Championship at the end of May – and arguably two of those are all but gone.
Premier League relegation odds (via Sky Bet)
- Southampton - 1/12
- Nottingham Forest - 2/7
- Leicester - 4/5
- Everton - 1/1
- Leeds - 9/4
Odds correct at 1700 BST (18/04/23)
Saints and Forest: Sure to go down
Southampton are five points adrift, without a win in six, and sinking fast.
They simply do not have the quality to mount a comeback and are suffering the consequences of that disastrous mid-season manager change.
Forest, meanwhile, are within touching distance of others but their horrible run-in means it would take a miracle for Steve Cooper to keep them up.
A total of 21 of their 27 points have come at the City Ground, where they face Brighton, Southampton and Arsenal, plus away from home they still have Liverpool, Brentford, Chelsea and Crystal Palace.
Surely they cannot get three wins or more from that lot.
Leicester: Smith & Terry can boost them up
Winning the second half 1-0 at the Etihad was just enough of a springboard to get Dean Smith started.
His surprise appointment hasn’t filled Leicester fans with confidence but there is a good chance he will find success implementing the same ultra-defensive counter-attacking football he used to drag Aston Villa out of the bottom three in 2019/20.
The way Leicester scrambled into their own penalty area from the first minute at Manchester City was a sign of things to come.
Smith, delegating defensive duties to assistant John Terry, has already established a back three of Caglar Soyunku (effective at City after being brought in from the cold), Harry Soutar, and Wout Faes.
They will sit deep and throw their bodies in front of everything.
It worked for Villa largely because they could chuck the ball to Jack Grealish to relieve pressure, and in James Maddison – who has 15 goal contributions in 23 starts this season – Leicester have a similar outlet.
In fact, they are the highest scorers in the bottom half with 41; sort out the defence, which Smith will do by moving the line back 20 yards, and Leicester ought to have enough to survive.
Smith is also a well-liked coach whom players tend to enjoy working for, which should be enough to lift talented players like Wilfried Ndidi, Youri Tielemans, and Harvey Barnes.
The fact that Smith has already established a leadership group and sought their input in meetings will have gone down well.
Now all they need to do is play at about 80% of their actual level and - with Wolves (h), Leeds (a), Everton (h), and Fulham (a) in their next four – Leicester will survive.
Everton: Dyche slipping up without key midfielders
For a while it looked as though Sean Dyche would steady the ship as predicted, after Everton picked up three 1-0 wins at Goodison Park through early Spring, but injuries have caused fresh disruption.
Dyche’s 4-5-1 looked powerful enough through the middle – with Abdoulaye Doucoure, Idrissa Gueye, and Andre Onana – to grind out wins even without a recognised centre forward, but Onana’s groin injury and Doucoure’s suspension saw Dyche move to a 4-4-2 against Manchester United and Fulham, games that ended in defeat.
It really is as simple as that: with the right midfield Dyche has a platform, but without key players Everton are hopelessly brittle.
The good news is that Dominic Calvert-Lewin is expected to feature this weekend for the first time since Dyche’s debut, while Doucoure only has one match left on his suspension, so if Dyche shifts Alex Iwobi back into the middle and returns to a 4-5-1 – with a target man up top – Everton stand a fighting chance.
Then again, their remaining home matches are Newcastle, Man City, and Bournemouth, and with Dyche yet to win an away game as Everton manager that heaps a lot of pressure on the final day.
They could scrape points at Crystal Palace, Leicester, Brighton or Wolves, although it’s difficult to see how they get three wins.
Leeds: Defensive collapse signals relegation
It might be hard to picture Everton’s away wins, but Dyche only needs to win three more points than Javi Gracia’s Leeds – which looks increasingly doable.
Leeds have fallen apart at the worst possible moment.
Their 6-1 defeat to Liverpool on Monday night follows a
5-1 defeat to Crystal Palace eight days earlier, making it 11 goals conceded in consecutive games at Elland Road, while across the last eight matches only Chelsea and Forest failed to score at least twice against Leeds.
Heads have dropped.
Gracia was brought in to normalise Leeds and improve their defensive showing, and without that there is very little reason to believe he can keep up what is the worst squad of the three clubs being considered here.
It gets bleaker. Since October, Leeds have won just four league matches and all four were against teams in desperate situations at the time: Forest, Wolves, Southampton and Bournemouth.
Of their remaining seven matches only Leicester are in that sort of trouble, although Gracia will hope for results against Bournemouth, Fulham, and West Ham – all away.
They only have three more at Elland Road and two of those are against Newcastle and Tottenham.
With no comeback on the horizon, and no obvious reason why Leeds should suddenly get better, it seems likely they will win three fewer points than Everton – joining Southampton and Nottingham Forest in next season’s Championship.
I cant see us getting anything from these unless we get a psychological lift if Calvert comes back in. Even then i dont know.
