Hey Stoke, West Brom and Hull, welcome to the Premier League party! Before you take off your jackets and get too comfortable, you might want to consider what happened to the last few guys who made it into the top twenty:
Only once have all three newly promoted sides survived - Fulham, Blackburn and Bolton in 2001-02. All three have been ever present since.On the only occasion that all three promoted sides went straight back down - Bolton, Barnsley and Crystal Palace in 1997-98 - none of them returned for four years.
Only 24 of the 47 clubs promoted into the Premier League have survived their first season.
Ten of the 16 Championship winners have survived, including five of the last seven, while four of the last five play-off winners have gone straight back down, three by finishing last.
Whether you believe it’s doom and gloom for the newbies, or you feel that some of the other top flight teams have outstayed their welcome (as chickendinner do), you are well advised to have a butchers at the Premier League relegation graph we helped produce with Betfair. It’s dead fancy, includes a link to a free £10 bet and will help you make an informed decision on the relegation battle. Take a look now!
Boro and B’ham head honchos inspire debate via slanging match
The powers-that-be at Middlesbrough and Birmingham have been having a bit of a ding-dong of late. First, Birmingham chairman David Gold said that it was better to experience constant promotion and relegation than to float around mid-table like Middlesbrough. Yet now, Boro’s chief executive Keith Lamb has responded.
“I seriously doubt Boro fans would swap our recent histories. Since moving to the Riverside in 1995, we have achieved five major cup finals, are the only English side outside of the so-called big four to have played in a European final, have enjoyed successive seasons of UEFA Cup football, won our first major trophy and enjoyed 11 consecutive years in the Premier League.”
Rumours that he added that his daddy was tougher than Gold’s are unsubstantiated, but nevertheless Lamb raises an important issue for football fans: would you rather enjoy the financial benefits and consistency of mid-table obscurity, or experience the highs and lows of alternating promotion/ relegation campaigns.
Let us know what you think with a vote and comment below…
Time for predictions that might look foolish in a few months
We’ve all been abnormally interested in dull sports like sailing and young aggressive divers of late, but fortunately that’s all about to change with the start of the Premier League season. Arsenal are virtually guaranteed the top spot for a few hours owing to their 12.45 kick off against newbies West Brom, but will they be able to hold onto that lead until the bitter end, or will they bottle it like last year? Vote below, please…
Everyone was as bad as everyone else in the Championship last year, but somehow West Brom, Stoke and Hull managed to secure a money-spinning year with the big boys. Will any of those clubs stay buoyant, or will they suffer the same fate as Crystal Palace, Bolton, and Barnsley in 1997/98, whose collective appearance in the Premiership was all too brief. Let us know below…
Appearing in the Premier League for one season only…
Only once in Premier League history have all three promoted sides gone straight back down (Barnsley, Bolton and Palace in 1997/98) and for that reason it’s unlikely that West Brom, Stoke and Hull will all make a swift return to the Championship. Then again, looking at our team comprising the three newcomers’ best players, they’ll have their work cut out. Even Bolton wouldn’t touch most of these guys…
[Now including eleventh man George Boateng, a player who always slips under the radar, which might explain how we managed to leave him out of our initial list! - Ed.]
Scott Carson (West Brom)
A season away from the spotlight will benefit the 22-year-old whose form last season was clearly affected by the scrutiny that followed his England error. Carson’s last relegation battle was with Charlton two years ago and their fans voted him Player of the Year.
Marek Cech (West Brom)
The Slovakian left-back scored the equaliser that killed off Ireland’s slim Euro 2008 qualification hopes once and for all. He ended three seasons at Porto with three league titles and arrives with Champions League experience - not that the Baggies will be needing that!
Leon Cort (Stoke)
Neil Warnock’s decision to offload Carl Cort’s younger bro couldn’t have worked out better for the centre-back, with Stoke coming to his rescue and then taking him to the Premier League. Cort has
Which club’s champagne reserves will be utilised this weekend?
Over the past year, we’ve seen sacked managers, prison sentences and more Cristiano Ronlado sex partners than anyone thought conceivable, and it all reaches a conclusion on Sunday. It’s the first time since 1968 that the top two teams have been on the same points, and one of Chelsea or Manchester Utd will be lifting the silverware (although the Blues will have to make do with a shabby replica) at around 5pm. So who ya got? Vote now…
And while you’re at it, which two teams do you think will go down? The Spoiler believes Fulham will pull off a miraculous escape, but do you agree? Votes and comments below, please.
To bet on the title race click here and to bet on the relegation battle click here.
With the conclusion of the Premier League, the Turkish Grand Prix and the mighty Ebbsfleet’s visit to Wembley, there’s never been more temptation to stay inside on what will be a scorching weekend. Throughout today, we’ll be providing the news, opinions and statistics of all the action, and you can make it a little more interesting by having a punt right here.
FRIDAY
Indian Premier League
Rajasthan Royals/ Deccan Chargers (Setanta Sports 1, 3.30pm)
League One Play-off Semi-final First Leg
Southend Utd/ Doncaster Rovers (Sky Sports 1, 7.45pm)
SATURDAY
Turkish Grand Prix
Qualifying (ITV1, 12pm)
Championship Play-off Semi-final 1st Leg
Crystal Palace/ Bristol City (Sky Sports 1, 12.15pm)
Scottish Premier League
Rangers/ Dundee Utd (Setanta Sports 1, 12.30pm)
FA Trophy Final
Ebbsfleet Utd/ Torquay Utd (Sky Sports 1, 2.30pm)
Fulham to perform a Houdini-like escape this Sunday
As with the internet, the car and oxygen itself, it is now hard to imagine what life was like before the Apprentice. Not only does it make everything else on television look like the work of half-witted amateurs, but it has come to explain everything about modern life. The state of the economy? Small wonder it’s in such chaos if the business world is run on such pure incompetence. The war in Iraq? How can we hope to understand its complexities if the country’s most educated people can’t even begin to guess which religion eats kosher food? Boris Johnson becoming mayor of London? These people are brought to a state of frozen panic when asked to correctly place an apostrophe on a greetings card - what does that say about their decision making abilities? And so to the final day of the Premier League season, which Sir Alan neatly anticipated by firing two people. This weekend, two teams will be ejected from the top table. Like the Apprentice, there will be a lot of angry finger pointing, but moan as much as they like, two red-faced losers will be strapping themselves bitterly into the taxi of relegation, still none the wiser as to where it all went wrong.
The Spoiler believes Fulham will survive at the weekend. Disagree? Then bet against it!
The statistics
* Reading face Derby on Sunday, who are without a win in 31 league games, and regardless
The race to be anonymous in the Championship next year is heating up
Now that the Championship has morphed into toddler football matches where twenty-two hyperactive maniacs thunder around a field chasing the ball, teams would be wise to stick to the Premier League. Already Derby will be practicing their head-down running techniques, and Fulham should probably start swotting up on moping around in the centre circle crying for mummy. The rest, however, might still be allowed to play football next season.
The statistics
* In the last seven seasons, ten teams have conceded sixty-five or more goals in a season and each one has been relegated. This season Derby have let in seventy-six, Reading have now let in sixty-five.
* Nobody higher than 17th in the league at this stage of the season have gone on to be relegated in the last ten years, which
Who should be roughing it in the Championship next season?
With just three games to go in the league, it looks as if Mr Al Fayed has booked himself a first class one-way trip to the Championship with Derby next season. Just one relegation spot remains in contention, and Bolton, Reading and Birmingham find themselves teetering dangerously close to the edge.
According to Right Result (the site that shows you how the table would look if refs got all the key decisions right), the relegation places would already belong to Bolton (whose own fans can’t even be bothered to turn up to home games) and Reading (whose recent form is only slightly better than that of Derby). But who deserves it this season? Is it one of the three current drop fodder, or a team who currently find themselves in safety? Rudderless Newcastle and inconsistent Middlesbrough spring to mind…
