Sport
RELEGATION ROLLERCOASTER
8 Points Separating The Bottom 7 In The Relegation Rollercoaster
With the title race seemingly run, attention turns to the bottom of the table and the battle to avoid relegation looks like it will go down to the wire and it will be a real rollercoaster ride for all the sides involved.
Bournemouth, Leicester City, Swansea City, Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough, Hull City and Sunderland all find themselves embroiled in the battle to stay up.
There are only eight points separating the bottom seven teams and it seems there is at least one vital relegation clash every weekend in the closing months of the campaign.
With only 11 games left in the season the bottom seven sides find themselves in their own mini-league as they look to secure their Premier League status.
Before Christmas it looked like the three relegation places were set in stone with Sunderland, Hull City and Swansea City occupying the bottom three, but although Sunderland and Hull still find themselves in the dreaded drop zone they have given themselves hope of escaping.
Sunderland Have Been Here Before
Sunderland are holding up the rest of the Premier League right now, but they have been here before and somehow managed to pull off the great escape.
The Black Cats have been involved in a relegation fight in every season since 2013 and managed to survive.
All of those great escapes have been masterminded by different managers heaping the pressure on David Moyes to repeat the trick, but surely the Black Cats have used up enough lives in the last four seasons.
Hull City were many people’s favourites to go straight back down again after winning promotion last season and they have been playing catch-up all season after losing Steve Bruce before a ball was kicked and having one of the smallest squads in the league.
After a flying start under Mike Phelan Hull found life tough and Portuguese coach Marco Silva was brought in to their lead their survival bid.
The signs have been encouraging under Silva, but it seems a lack of quality in the squad and the decisions to sell Robert Snodgrass and Jake Livermore in January will probably cost Hull dear in the end.
Swans Have Their Heads Above Water
Swansea, who are already on their third manager of the season in Paul Clement, have foraged their way out of the bottom three with the Swans rock bottom of the table when Clement took charge.
The Welsh side who looked doomed at Christmas have won four of their last six games and Clement must take a lot of the credit for the transformation in form.
Middlesbrough have taken Swansea’s place in the bottom three following a run of ten games without a win and with the pressure growing on manager Aitor Karanka.
Boro’s problem all season has been the lack of goals as their lowest scorers in the league with just 19 goals and their run-in does not make good reading. If they do turn things around they will definitely be doing it the hard way.
However, Crystal Palace have shown how quickly things can turn around with back-to-back wins lifting the Eagles out of the bottom three.
Palace brought in survival expert Sam Allardyce to replace Alan Pardew to ensure they avoided relegation, but up until the last two games Allardyce initially struggled to have the desired effect on the Palace squad.
Allardyce will be hoping Palace can build on their two recent wins as they face four of the top six in their remaining fixtures.
Just a few weeks ago it looked like the implausible might happen and that champions Leicester could follow up their stunning success of last season by going down this season, but since the departure of Claudio Ranieri the Foxes have found something of their title winning form with impressive wins over Liverpool and Hull.
Those two wins have helped the squad regain their confidence and they should have more than enough to ensure they do not find themselves in the dogfight at the end of the season.
Bournemouth Up Against It
Level on points with Leicester are Bournemouth and they look the side most likely to get dragged into after a disappointing start to 2017.
The Cherries have yet to win in 2017 and their porous defence, having now conceded 19 goals in their last seven Premier League games means unless they can find a solution to tighten things up they will continue to struggle to win games and pick up the points keep the clear of trouble.
There is enormous pressure on all seven sides to avoid relegation and there is bound to be twists and turns in the run-in before the fate of the three unlucky clubs is decided in dropping out of the Premier League.
