For the best drama in the Prem, head for the basement

One unintentional benefit of Richard Scudamore’s efforts to pump obscene amounts of cash into the Premier League has been to turn the annual relegation battle into the division’s true drama. Nothing draws out the fighting spirit in the modern athlete better than the thought of losing money, and this season, a record eight teams - sorry Derby, not you - are going at each other like ferrets in a feed sack. Compare this to the contest for the title, which features just two runners plus the riderless horse Chelsea, galloping along under the illusion they’re still in it. As usual, Mr Scudamore is playing a dangerous game, as he’d better hope no one joins the dots and discovers that Martin Taylor’s amputation of Eduardo’s foot at the weekend came as a result of him taking the pitch pumped up with a week’s indoctrination on the evils of relegation. Gladiatorial battles are most stirring, but players without feet are not good for the brand.

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The statistics

* Newcastle have eleven league fixtures left and have taken just six points from their last eleven. If they continue this run of form they will finish on thirty-four points - an amount that would have seen them relegated in the past two seasons.

* If all teams involved in the relegation battle transferred their form in the last eleven games into the final eleven games then it makes grim reading for Reading and Fulham fans: the former would finish eighteenth on twenty-seven points, and the latter nineteenth on twenty-five points.

* On current form, Derby are on course to break Sunderland’s record as being the worst team to play in the Premier League.

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