EPL: A look at the Premier League relegation battle
In the Premier League the bottom three finishing teams are automatically relegated to England’s 2nd division, the Football League Championship.
Fans of English football know that each year that the last three placed Premier League teams are sent down a level on the football pyramid and the top two teams in the Football League Championship, as well as the winner of the Playoff system, are sent up to the top flight. This is called the promotion and relegation system.
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Currently the three teams in the drop zone are Newcastle United on 24 points, Sunderland on 23 points and Aston Villa sit dead bottom on 16 points.
While Aston Villa are almost assuredly going down, the other two teams are still in competition to stay up in the Premier League for next season, and the three teams ahead of them, Bournemouth, Swansea City and Norwich City are keeping an eye down the table to avoid being sucked into the drop zone. Norwich City are especially worried, as they are currently only ahead of Newcastle thanks to their goal differential.
Based on their current form, Newcastle and Norwich City should remain nervous, as both are low in the Premier League’s form table as well. Aston Villa, meanwhile, are on a decent run of form for them this season, but with their abysmal points total this season it seems an impossible task for Remi Garde to keep them up.
Of the teams in the relegation battle, it would seem most likely that Norwich and Sunderland are most likely, in my mind, to join Aston Villa and spend next season in the Championship.
Now, who is looking like they are going to replace these sides from the Championship?
The top of the Championship table currently looks like this:
Hull City and Middlesbrough are in the automatic promotion spots. Hull have an FA Cup tie against Arsenal coming up, and given the financial windfall that comes with Premier League promotion, they may play a weaker side against the Gunners to focus on the league. Given that they’ve spent some time in the Premier League lately, Hull looks a solid bet for promotion, and Boro could easily join them.
The next few teams sit in the playoff spots, and on current form one would probably pick Sheffield Wednesday to secure the Playoff spot, as they’ve only lost once in their last 10 matches, a 1-0 loss to Boro on December 28th. Although anything can happen in the Football League Playoff of course!
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Either way, we are definitely in for an exciting finish to both the Premier League and Championship seasons. Whichever teams come up from the 2nd level will receive a massive financial windfall, and the three teams that fall down will be gunning to get right back the top flight where they will certainly feel they belong.