Colours to the mast, pick your relegation candidates

[Loyal-Royal_1997]

The full table will look like this

1st - Man Utd
2nd - Man City
3rd - Chelsea
4th - Arsenal
5th - Tottenham
6th - Newcastle
7th - Everton
8th - Liverpool
9th - Swansea
10th - West Ham
11th - Aston Villa
12th - Stoke
13th - Fulham
14th - Reading
15th - Southampton
16th - Norwich
17th - Fulham
18th - Sunderland
19th - Swansea
20th - QPR

So that'd be Sunderland, Swansea and QPR in the bottom three

[Stuka]

The full table will look like this

1st - Man Utd
2nd - Man City
3rd - Chelsea
4th - Arsenal
5th - Tottenham
6th - Newcastle
7th - Everton
8th - Liverpool
9th - Swansea
10th - West Ham
11th - Aston Villa
12th - Stoke
13th - Fulham
14th - Reading
15th - Southampton
16th - Norwich
17th - Fulham
18th - Sunderland
19th - Swansea
20th - QPR

So that'd be Sunderland, Swansea and QPR in the bottom three

I think Arsenal will struggle this year, maybe just scraping a Europa League spot.

[floyd__streete]

Pretty certain that Reading will go down.

[Royal Prince]

Saints, QPR, Norwich

The only issue is that I don't drink in the Nags, therefore in the unlikely event I'm right feel free to donate my pint to a local hobo!

[Royal_Nico]

Of course, we'll be fine.

Swansea, Wigan and Norwich for the drop!

[RockheadRumple]

The full table will look like this

1st - Man Utd
2nd - Man City
3rd - Chelsea
4th - Arsenal
5th - Tottenham
6th - Newcastle
7th - Everton
8th - Liverpool
9th - Swansea
10th - West Ham
11th - Aston Villa
12th - Stoke
13th - Fulham
14th - Reading
15th - Southampton
16th - Norwich
17th - Fulham
18th - Sunderland
19th - Swansea
20th - QPR

So that'd be Sunderland, Swansea and QPR in the bottom three

Swap QPR with West Ham and I think that'd be a little better.

[Royal Bahamas]

The full table will look like this

1st - Man Utd
2nd - Man City
3rd - Chelsea
4th - Arsenal
5th - Tottenham
6th - Newcastle
7th - Everton
8th - Liverpool
9th - Swansea
10th - West Ham
11th - Aston Villa
12th - Stoke
13th - Fulham
14th - Reading
15th - Southampton
16th - Norwich
17th - Fulham
18th - Sunderland
19th - Swansea
20th - QPR

So that'd be Sunderland, Swansea and QPR in the bottom three

I actually agree that Swansea will end up as a top-ten team, with Laudrup in charge.
I know that you have Swansea down twice and that you state they will go down, but I think it will be the team that you missed out.....Wigan, to go down....with Norwich and Stoke fighting it out with Sunderland for the other two spots.

[russyb]

you have fulham in there twice

[SydenhamRoyal]

you have fulham in there twice

yeah and west brom missing

[RockheadRumple]

you have fulham in there twice

yeah and west brom missing

And Wigan.

[windermere_royal]

swansea twice too

[rhroyal]

Pretty certain that Reading will go down.

Thing is, you've been pretty certain that everything will go wrong for so long now, that nobody really pays attention (apart from me writing this).

There are plenty of candidates this season. I'd say 3 of us, Soton, West Ham, West Brom, Swansea, Stoke, Norwich, Wigan. A couple of others could be dragged in but it'll be a longer shot.

I'll stick my neck out and say Reading, Norwich and Wigan to go down.

I'm not "pretty certain" though; it'll be tight and we're capable of survival, making you eat humble pie yet again.

[LongThrowSpecialist]

We were a bit gash the second half of last season admittedly, but I think we will be fine, we have Tony Pulis who has never been relegated in his career(after successfully battling relegation a few times). We were tipped to be relegated the season we came up. As has been said, a bad season can happen to any mid-table side to relegate them though.

My 3 are

Wigan - Their luck is finally going to run out this season, they will get relegated again to League 1 where they will spend the majority of their time.

Swansea - Overachieved massively with one of the worst teams in the Premier League of recent years. It worked, credit to them, but they will struggle with the legendary second season syndrome.

West Brom - Lost their manager, they are an alright team (another of them teams that hoof the ball a fair bit, but pretend to be superior to us), but my outsider to go down. After finally losing to them for only the second time in 30 years (we've played them many times) they are no longer a guaranteed 4/6 points for us, so I'm quite happy for them to go.


In the pot are

Reading
Southampton
QPR

And pretty much any team from 9th down. I hope it's Sunderland, QPR and West Ham that go down, but that will never happen.

[Pepe the Horseman]

The full table will look like this

1st - Man Utd
2nd - Man City
3rd - Chelsea
4th - Arsenal
5th - Tottenham
6th - Newcastle
7th - Everton
8th - Liverpool
9th - Swansea
10th - West Ham
11th - Aston Villa
12th - Stoke
13th - Fulham
14th - Reading
15th - Southampton
16th - Norwich
17th - Fulham
18th - Sunderland
19th - Swansea
20th - QPR

So that'd be Sunderland, Swansea and QPR in the bottom three

Utd will be third. No chance QPR or Sunderland will go down.

[Vision]

QPR will be fine, I think Saints have made some good signings and I think their key players have the pedigree to step up whilst Wigan improved massively in the last third of the season and I have a sneaky feeling they'll do alright this year.

Villa are the dark horses for me, its a real test of Lambert's managerial credentials and much like West Ham it doesn't take much for their fans to turn on them. Any small attacking prowess West Brom had last season will almost certainly be completely blunted by dullard Clarke and I don't think you can 0-0 your way to safety in this League. Norwich under Hughton could go the same way and without Glyffi's killer instinct in the last third I can definitely see Swansea struggling as well.

Pure blind optimism says we'll just about be ok but in all honesty its pretty difficult to know if enough of our untested players at this level can step up.

I'm going for Swansea,West Brom and Norwich for the bottom three with ourselves, West Ham and Villa looking nervously over our shoulders during the last couple of games.

[Alan Partridge]

QPR's chance to go down was last year when the likes of Kenny, Derry, Hill and Helguson were regular starters. They will be this years Sunderland, spent billions of pounds on rubbish Premier League players to finish 14th.

[floyd__streete]

Pretty certain that Reading will go down.

Thing is, you've been pretty certain that everything will go wrong for so long now, that nobody really pays attention (apart from me writing this).

I'll stick my neck out and say Reading, Norwich and Wigan to go down.

I'm not "pretty certain" though; it'll be tight and we're capable of survival, making you eat humble pie yet again.

Yeah fair play - if anyone is going to get the best of this squad again it is Brian McDermott. I just think that in almost every area on the pitch we will be weaker than most teams in this division. That's hardly putting my neck on the line in terms of a statement/forecast. I actually generally quite like the signings (McLeary, Mariappa, Gunter are all young and hungry enough to put everything into making the step up. Not entirely convinced by the other 3 for varying reasons).

[Reading4eva]

At the moment, I feel the weakest squads in the league are West Ham, Aston Villa and Norwich. I am quietly confident with ourselves

[Extended-Phenotype]

Since when have Reading ever had a ‘stronger player’ in any position? Brian doesn’t give a F/CK about football, it’s about gettin’ a good group of guys together. One’s good at making sound FX, another is like really nerdy, one is super fat, one was like raised by Vietnamese Pigs, another has AIDS and only has 1 season to live, another is a girl dressed as a guy, one is a paedophile who just needs a chance, and one is really strong and doesn’t speak but at the end of the season when Reading win the league after AIDS guy scores the winning goal, he like yelled ‘MAN ON’ or something. Anyway, Reading are about the team, so who cares if Guthrie is a reject, he can make cool sound FX.

[RockheadRumple]

E-P has graced the forum once more