Monday 17 January 2011

Fourteen teams in relegation battle!

I cannot recall a season when so many teams in the Premier League have the potential to be relegated. I don't mean that they're all not very good - I mean that the lower half (and more) of the division is so tight.

Just TEN POINTS cover the teams from bottom (West Ham United with 20 points) all the way up to Bolton Wanderers in seventh place with 30 points.

Forty points is usually taken as the number you need to be safe after 38 games. Only once have more points been needed. That could happen again this seasonas points are being shared around liberally between all teams.

No team among the 14 in that ten-point zone will consider themselves safe until they are comfortably past the 40-mark point.

Let's look at a few examples:

At the bottom West Ham have 20 points from 23. They need at least another 20 from 15 games. That's seven wins from 15; they've only won four so far. Ouch.

In 17th place are Aston Villa with 22 points from 22. If they carried on at a point a game, they'd get 38 points. Not enough. So they need a couple of back-to-back wins to ease their discomfort.

Everton and Liverpool are 12th and 13th respectively, both with 26 points from 22 games. Another 14 each from 16 games looks within their compass (three wins, 2 draws), but a bad run oif a few games without a win would trouble them.

In 7th Bolton Wanderers should be secure, but even they won't rest easy until they bag another 10 points from their remaining 15 games. If they were to lose three or four in a row and slip into the bottom half the board and fans would soon get nervous.

In a season when the top teams are stumbling and not shining as brightly as in recent seasons, the battle to stay in the Premier League should keep our interest until the very last day.

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