Next season, there will be the usual candidates for relegation. The 3 newly promoted clubs will top the list of course, as well as Wigan, who only just survived this year. However, in recent years there have been several surprises. Normally there is at least 1 team who falls from mid-table safety one year to relegation dog fight the next, and often they end up going down. Not many people would have expected this team to go down. Its often a side who have overachieved in the previous season, or ended the previous season with a dreadful run of form, or have appointed a new boss to take them forward(but actually takes them backwards). Recent examples: <ul> [*]This season: Charlton, West Ham, Wigan [*]Last season: Birmingham and Portsmouth [*]Previous years: West Ham, Leeds, Southampton [/list] I'm not suggesting that these team didn't deserve to go down/be down there, because they all had awful seasons, but I'm sure that at this stage last year there were very few people betting on west ham and wigan to still not be safe with 1 game to go. Charlton are a classic example of a team who had a good manager getting the best out of some OK players. Then the fans keep getting fed up because they're never improving, just finishing mid table every year. So the manager leaves and in comes an average manager hoping to take them to the next level, only to realize that the team had gone as far as it could go. Suddenly, with a few injuries and a bit of bad luck your bottom of the league. Everyone panics. the manager's sacked. In comes new guy, he's even worse. Now they're in real trouble. So who do you think will be next seasons Titanic, sinking to the depths when everyone expecting it to be plain sailing? (Sorry, couldn't resist). Here are some of the teams I think could be that team next season: Reading Bolton Fulham Middlesborough What do you think?
<div class="quote_poster">neo Wrote</div><div class="quote_post"> Charlton are a classic example of a team who had a good manager getting the best out of some OK players. Then the fans keep getting fed up because they're never improving, just finishing mid table every year. So the manager leaves and in comes an average manager hoping to take them to the next level, only to realize that the team had gone as far as it could go. Suddenly, with a few injuries and a bit of bad luck your bottom of the league. Everyone panics. the manager's sacked. In comes new guy, he's even worse. Now they're in real trouble. [/LIST]</div> We never got fed up mate, if anything we got louder and louder at the games. Season ticket sales have rocketed up because our fan want to show their support even after we got relagated season where stil getting sold at an amazing rate (for charlton).
Boro won't be the team to struggle that badly that we're as close as West Ham were this year. We can match teams such as Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, it's just we really need to take our chances. We took one against Arsenal and we drew 1-1 at the Emirates. We took one against Man Utd and we drew 1-1 at Old Trafford. But then, earlier in the season, we lost to all 3 promoted teams. We're inconsistent, but we're not a team that loses so many games that we're in trouble.
I think any of these teams could go down -Boro -Wigan -Derby/West Brom -Reading (same as wigan did last year looked good first season slumped in the second)
