Who's going down in 2004?

Well now its time to place your bets.

I'm thinking Portsmouth, why? Because 'arry is already plotting his crap buys so he can line his pockets.

Do you think Todorov will score 10 goals in the EPL?

DiCanio is rumored there - he's like 36 and gets a stomach virus every other day.

Hayden Foxe is pants.

Wolves, Bolton, Spuds

Portsmouth, Bolton, Wolves

Isn't it a bit early to even be considering this? The transfer window has only just opened and who knows what players will be playing for who? But since we are going to talk about it, I'd suggest the following :

One thing is for sure, Leicester will struggle. No money, the transfer embargo is still in place (I think??) and the team that took them up was worse than the team that took them down.

Wolves will have a tough season but I, for one, don't expect them to be relegated. With the Sky TV money and Sir Jack's millions I think Wolves have enough financial clout to be strengthed enough to stay up. (Well, okay I'm a little bias )

Portsmouth are alledged to only have £5million in transfer funds (although there have been suggestions that much more is actually available, the £5million might be a smoke-screen). Five million isn't enough to secure top players. However, there are a number of good established Premier League players out of contract at the moment and this is where Portsmouth will probably get their new players from. Provided they get the right mix, they stand a chance of staying up. Get the wrong mix....well, it dosn't bear thinking about.

Spurs, well they started last season well enough but it all started to fall apart. An unknown quantity, but again I expect them to stay up.

Bolton have been in the Premiership three seasons and they've escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth on each occasion. So, either this season they'll go down or they'll finally make the break-through to mid-table. Relegation seems more likely but you never know.

Leeds United look like they'll be losing more players in the summer and they won't be able to replace them like-for-like so I can see them struggling.

David O'Leary needs to get Aston Villa sorted out sharpish or they'll be in trouble. I suspect last season was a blip, but they need to strengthen. Finishing below Birmingham City last year was a shock to the fans of the claret and blue.

Fulham look like they'll be losing players prior to the start of the season and they have an unknown quantity in manager Chris Coleman.

For relegation, I'd be looking at Bolton, Fulham and Portsmouth.

Its never too early to start thinking about relegation.

Your thoughts are well done, and you've covered all the bases.

Thanks for the solid input.

Hopefully Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal.

I suspect it won't turn out that way unfortunately .

Bolton should be top half, and maybe even UEFA cup material with a couple of fortunate results. I'll tip Fulham (considering the finances), Pompey, and Leicester for the drop. Btw, if Rovers keep Duff and Dunn, they're in CL after next season!

Spoken like someone who'd been thinking about it since Christmas,

Bad luck to your guys there. I was hoping your guys would stay up, actually.

If I remember this thread last year, I was the first to mention Sunderland, who went on to open up previously unexplored dimensions of crapitude.

I'm going to say Portsmouth (my pick for last place at Christmas) and Leicester, with five teams fighting to avoid the drop with two weeks to go. Of that five, Fulham will go down, and Leeds, Aston Villa, Bolton, and Wolves will be relieved.

Christmas...try Thanksgiving.

Damn Kanoute!

I think you have very solid picks.

I'd add Leicester to my list...the 3rd team..I'm hoping Arsenal!!!

Leeds I hope. Just because I can't stand that brat Alan Smith. And stop mentioning Wolves!!

Well, the three up are automatic favourites. Of the three, I think Leicester are actually in decent shape. They are debt-free, thanks to their nifty exploitation of that now infamous loophole in our bancrupcy laws and they have money to spend this summer. Not much, but more than Bolton have spent in the past two seasons.

What's more, they managed to keep hold of all their top players, bar Savage and get them on deferrment deals. Now they have Sky money with which to pay up the deferred portion of the player wages. They also have a brand-new 32000-seater stadium that is guaranteed 19 sell-outs next season. And they have Mickey Adams.

I actually think it will be the managers that decide who goes down next year. Dave Jones and Harry Redknapp are experienced and wily campaigners, Adams is a very talented, dynamic force (albeit untested at Premiership level). That's why I make my first firm tip Fulham. With Chris Coleman (much as he is to be admired) at the helm of that cosmopolitan hotch-potch of underachievers, they are going to struggle. Especially after the now-inevitable departure of Sean Davis, Steed Malbranque and Steve Finnan.

Portsmouth have to rate as highly likely candidates. It may come down to some of 'arry's famed wheeler-dealing in the closing stages, a la Bolton the last two years. If they retain the services of Merson, rather than giving into the romance of a move for di Canio and manage to secure the services of a top-quality central defender, then their natural panache may yet save them from the drop. But as things stand, you have to make them one of your three.

And finally, I think Wolves will go down. They are seriously holding up Paul Ince as a reason why they won't. Doomed.

Caveat - Now that they've named a street after Uncle Jack, he may be persuaded into even more idiotic largesse on behalf of his beloved white elephant. That will obviously alter the balance. I rate Dave Jones highly and would be confident that he could do some damage if he had the right sort of funds available.

Well, this past season, with about 5 or 6 games to go, I said that Leeds didn't stand a chance of staying up. They were playing like crap and had a tough schedule. Then they went out a won a couple to survive. Then with about 3 games remaining, I said that Fulham were crap playing under a lame duck manager who didn't care. So they fired him and Coleman spurred them to a couple wins and they stayed up. So most likely, whoever I pick at this point is going to be guaranteed to survive next season.

It is still early, because we don't know how some of the financial things are going to shake out relative to the transfers. Leeds are in trouble and I don't have a lot of faith in Peter Reid. If they are able to hold onto some of their key players like Kewell and Viduka and pick up a solid defender, they'll probably be ok. But with their financial issues, I'm not sure they're going to be able to do that. So they could be a candidate.

It's extremely unlikely that all 3 promoted teams will drop back down -- I think it's only happened once since the EPL started. I can't remember for sure, but back in December I looked it up. However, I think it's also extremely unlikely that all 3 promoted teams will survive. So 1 or 2 of Leicester, Wolves and Portsmouth will drop. I agree with Matt that of these 3, it's likely the managers that make the difference. Wolves have the money, Leicester don't. Portsmouth is somewhere in between.

I'll pick Leicester to join Leeds on the way down.

Fulham and Aston Villa will struggle again and will battle it out with Portmouth and Wolves and also probably Bolton.

I'll pick Fulham to be the last one to lose out.

Portsmouth, Wolves, Leeds.

Leeds are so not going down.

Who's going down in 2004

I like jl's style - just comes in the forum, spits it out, walks away. None of this proving his case, just blurts it out, walks away.

Beautiful

Re: Who's going down in 2004

She reminds me of Helen Jensen from "Dream Team"

I thought Merson was signed through the upcoming season - but wasn't granted an extension beyond that point.

And I thought Paul Ince and Dennis Irwin were both seeing the hand-writing on the wall and were publically starting to announce their intentions to retire (or at least pursue lower league opportunities).

All this being said, I think that Wolves are going to be vulnerable.

I agree with you about Fulham, as well. This (past) season they had excellent talent - even if they didn't always play well. Next season they won't even have excellent talent to fall back on.

Manchester City is going to be vulnerable if any of their defenders get hurt. I don't see them scoring any more goals (Anelka really fell off after his initial splash and Fowler hasn't shown many glimmers). Plus, with rumors that Berkovic and/or Benarbia could be gone (along with Marc Vivian-Foe), who is going to fill the play-making role? They played downright miserably at times in the run-in.

Spurs could be very ugly as well. We have heard lots of rumors about their signing a new goalscorer, but what's new? They are going to miss Sheringham's and Ferdinand's production. They have to play someone up front with Robbie Keane. Who is it going to be? Rebrov? Iversson? If neither has been the answer for so long, why are they going to be the answer now? Is Ledley King going to continue to struggle this season? How long can Dean Richard keep playing at a high-level? He seems to be more and more injury prone. Ziege is going to have to come back slowly. Taricco is a hack. Steven Carr is likely to be gone. They lack a decent defensive midfielder, Acimovic seems to be terrible, Poyet is aging and has talked about retiring, Jamie Redknapp and Darren Anderton still spend most of their matches sitting in the stands and Glenn Hoddle is none too secure in his position. It is hard to believe, but Tottenham could be in the same boat next season as Aston Villa was this season. How long before Simon Davies is bought by another team? At least they have Toda to sell shirts, even if the team is pants!

Birmingham seems to be consolidating.

Bolton seems to be consolidating.

Aston Villa should have the talent to ride out the next season or two before O'Leary either makes them a great team or causes them to implode.

Middlesbrough could be surprise strugglers if Juninho gets hurt and/or they don't get any of their rumored huge signings. How many times did Geremi bail them out last season? It seemed like every goal he scored (let alone created) tied or won the match.

I'm going to take the American, analytical perspective. Since I don't really know the players on the promoted teams very well (and don't pretend to.)

I've been following the EPL closely for 2 seasons now, since I got FoxSportsWorld. And I have yet to see one of the auto-promoted teams relegated. So I think that you have to figure Pompey and Leicester are in pretty good shape. (It's my opinion that Premiership fans exaggerate the difference in quality between the best D1 teams and the worst EPL teams, but that's for another thread.)

As for Wolves...they started some ancient friggin' players in defense. Unless they make some very smart buys, and get a bit lucky, I expect to see them go down.

So who else? The first place to look would be the teams that barely made it. I'd pick Fulham, because of the massive uncertainty around the club. That's never an advantage, and often can destroy a team from the inside.

Who for the 3rd place? Either ManU or...I'm having a hard time picking a 3rd team. I'm not really convinced BUFC is as good as their results, so I'll pick them. That's probably just because they actually play Jovan Kirovski now and again, and he sucks.

I have 2 picks for teams that might possibly have highly disappointing seasons, if not get relegated. First, Southampton. Beattie is unlikely to repeat last year's goal scoring. Also, they're in the UEFA Cup by virtue of losing the FA Cup, right? Do they have the squad depth to pull that off? For a club like Southhampton, it's got to be hard to resist the temptation to really try to make a run in Europe; how many chances will they get? Another Ipswich?

Second, Spurs were just Godawful at the end of last season. With a fanbase that strikes me as having unrealistic expectations, a poor start to the season might cause the whole thing to implode, a la' Sunderland last year. I don't think the Spurs will go down, mind you, I'm saying that if you can place a bet at good odds that they'll end the season in the bottom 5, I'd take it.

Gee, and I was just going to say something about how nice it was to read a relegation thread without Man City being mentioned.

Publicly, Keegan has 5M£ to spend during the summer. (Seaman was a free transfer), and the chairman has announced plans to trim the 1st team roster, which is 30 at the moment. Yes, there is always a worry about a team over achieving in its first year up and therefore going back down in the 2nd, but (those 4 glorious points against the Scum excepted) I don't you could really argue that City over achieved. They mostly beat the teams that finished below them and mostly lost to the teams that finished above them.

Anyone except the Big Three could be in trouble as a result of major long term injuries, but barring that possibility, I don't think City are in much danger.

One comment about the fortunes of the newly promoted teams: in recent years, the prospects of the teams that changed managers the summer after promotion have turned out to be particularly gruesome. Does that apply this year?

Cheers. No reason to elaborate. They're all cr@p!!

Are you confident about your strikers getting the job done? Is Paulo Wanchope going to be able to contribute? If not, who is your third forward (since Goater and Huckerby seem to be on the way out)?

How easy will it be to replace Foe? He is too expensive to secure permanently, correct? He played very well last year.

What about Berkovic and Benarbia? Are they returning? I have seen a lot of speculation linking Berkovic with another team. Perhaps they will be back after all.

Schemichal was a better keeper for Manchester City last year than Seaman was this year. With a creaky backline, you need an intimidating shot stopper and a vocal leader in the back. Seaman is not nearly as intimidating and he is used to working with players that are more assured. Can you imagine how much he is going to sweat set pieces and deep crosses given his declining mobility and lack of confidence in his questionable backs - Distin and Sommeil are decent players, but no better. Richard Dunne is extremely inconsistant. Sun Jihai is hard working, but he got burned for pace and positioning at times.

I just don't fancy a team that is vulnerable to the counterattack with an aging, technical keeper like Seaman between the sticks. Especially since it seemed like the team got worse in the run-in.

And given Keegan's vaunted offensive reputation:

Over the last 15 games, they only scored 14 goals (plus an own goal in their favor). Their opponents (including such illustrious teams as West Ham, Birmingham, Sunderland) scored 20 goals. Of the 14 that they managed, 4 were scored by Goater and Foe. Their top strikers scored 6 (for a combined strike rate of 40%).

I am not suggesting that City is sure for the drop - only that they wouldn't surprise me if they did worse than they did this year (especially if they cannot adequately replace Foe and Goater).

No, Foe will not be back.
I imagine that at least 1 of Berkovic/Benarbia will not be back, and the other Algerian, Belmadi, is already gone. On the other hand, Michael Tarnat will probably figure into the midfield equation somewhere.

Overall, however, the answers to your questions are mostly dependent on who Keegan brings in over the summer and how much returning players step it up or fall back....just like most other teams.

The team that actually played this season was not extremely similar to the one that got promoted a year ago, and next year's will look different again.

As for Keegan's reputation, my take is that he's learned a thing or two in his wanderings, and isn't particularly about all-out attack any more. If he was, he would have stuck with keeping Bernabia and Berkovic on the field for the whole season....and City would probably be preparing for D1 as a result.

I'm the opposite,NER...I'm relieved that someone has mentioned us!!! I can't be doing with people thinking we are safe,it'll come back & bite us on the bum!! I think Leeds have had their bad season & will do well next season,as will Villa & Spurs...hopefully Wolves will be OK,so I reckon Fulham,Pompey &......Bolton (Look...sorry Prenn...I wish it was Southampton!!)