2015/2016 Premier League Fixtures Announced: Who's Heading Down? (Relegation)

And so I come to my final post in this series. After discussions around the title race and the battle for a Champions League spot, I now come to the one that often ends up being the least predictable: relegation. Last year was no exception, with Newcastle coming perilously close to the drop after a simply horrific run of form towards the end of the season. However, it's my job in these posts to attempt to predict them based solely on the fixtures, so let's give it a go.

Before we start, I'm going to do a quick run through my choices for the sides that will be contesting the bottom three places. In my opinion, it all comes down to six teams. As at least one relegated side has been relegated for all bar two seasons this century, I'll include all three of the newly promoted sides, as well as others I believe to be vulnerable to relegation this year, namely Sunderland, Leicester and West Brom. You may have noticed that I've not included either Newcastle or Aston Villa, both of whom only narrowly evaded relegation last season. However, Aston Villa's upturn in form towards the back end of the season, along with the law of averages that suggests that Newcastle simply can't collapse in the same way they did last season, means that I don't believe either will be seriously fighting the drop this year.

So, now we've got our constituents, what do the fixtures say? Starting with the opening five, we can see an interesting variety of difficulties when it comes to fixtures. For instance, compare the opening fixtures for West Brom - Manchester City (h), Watford (a), Chelsea (h), Stoke (a) and Southampton (h) - with Sunderland's - Leicester (a), Norwich (h), Swansea (h), Aston Villa (a), Tottenham (h). Though the Black Cats do have some difficult games, there is nothing like the two top sides in the league and a difficult away trip to Stoke! Leicester's games are not too dissimilar to Sunderland's, with the starter against the North East club, before games at West Ham, at home to Spurs, away at Bournemouth and at home to Aston Villa.

Meanwhile, our new Premier League sides all have mediocre starts, with both challenging and easier games in their opening five. Watford have away games at Everton and Manchester City, as well as hosting West Brom, Southampton and Swansea. Norwich have a trip to St Mary's to contend with, in addition to hosting Stoke. Finally, Bournemouth's first season in the top flight sees them travel to Anfield, Norwich and West Ham, as well as hosting Leicester and Aston Villa.

In my opinion, the order is relatively simple - West Brom, Watford, Norwich, Bournemouth, Leicester, Sunderland.

As we move towards Christmas, the fixtures get brutal, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the relegation battle. For example, Leicester may be lucky to get three points out of their run of Chelsea (h), Everton (a), Liverpool (a), Manchester City (h), Bournemouth (h), while Watford may also struggle with their Sunderland (a), Liverpool (h), Chelsea (a), Tottenham (h), Manchester City (h). To be fair, no-one has a particularly easy ride, with West Brom perhaps the best placed to take advantage, but even they have to navigate tricky trips to Liverpool and Swansea, while hosting Newcastle, Stoke and Bournemouth.

Bournemouth may also see Christmas as a key moment, with an opportunity to claim some points. Starting with a home tie with Manchester United, they then travel to West Brom before hosting Crystal Palace. A trip to the Emirates follows, before going to Leicester on New Years' Day. Meanwhile, Norwich start their games with Everton at home and Manchester United and Spurs away, before home ties against Aston Villa and Southampton. Finally, Sunderland have three horrible games sandwiched by winnable ones. Starting with a home game against Watford, the Black Cats then travel to both of last year's top two, Chelsea and Manchester City, before hosting Liverpool. They finish the festive period with a game at home to Aston Villa, which could provide some respite.

This order is considerably more difficult, with many of the teams suffering during this period. Nevertheless, this is my order: Leicester, Watford, Sunderland, Norwich, Bournemouth, West Brom.

In the latter stages of the season, every point is critical. Therefore, the final five games are absolutely critical, and can ruin an entire year. Again, like the Christmas period, some clubs haven't been fortunate at all. In particular, I feel for Leicester, Bournemouth and Norwich. After a horrible Christmas period for the Foxes, they end their season with home ties against both West Ham and Swansea, before a horrible triple header of Manchester United (a), Everton (h) and Chelsea (a). Similarly, Norwich start with two, albeit slightly easier, home ties against Sunderland and Watford, before travelling to Arsenal, hosting Manchester United and making the trip to Everton. In contrast, Bournemouth start with horrible home ties against Liverpool and Chelsea, before travelling to Everton, hosting West Brom and then a killer tie at Manchester United on the final day.

Outside of those three, all have a couple of tricky ties, with a few games in which they can recoup some points. Sunderland have both Arsenal and Chelsea at home, as well as the tricky trip to Stoke, but they also have games against both Norwich and Watford. Similarly, West Brom have home games against West Ham and Liverpool, as well as a trip to Tottenham, but also playing Watford and Bournemouth. Finally, Watford probably have the easiest task, playing many of the sides around them, namely West Brom, Norwich and Sunderland, as well as a home tie with Aston Villa and a trip to Liverpool.

If the easiest is easy, the rest is fairly tricky, but this is the order that I have picked for the final five: Bournemouth, Leicester, Norwich, Sunderland, West Brom, Watford.

So, when all is said and done, who is set for the drop (according to the fixtures)? Well, if we add up the points, with six for the hardest and one for the easiest in each of the three periods, we can make a final table. Should there be even points, whoever has ended up at the highest end in terms of difficulty in any of the three periods will be considered at a disadvantage. With this in mind, here is the final order, as it would be in the table:

15th - Sunderland (8 points)
16th - West Brom (9 points)
17th - Norwich (11 points - top spot 3rd)
18th - Watford (11 points - top spot 2nd)
19th - Bournemouth (11 points - top spot 1st)
20th - Leicester (13 points)

Premier League 2013/2014: So Did The Fixtures Mean Anything? (Relegation)

Those of you who have been following my blog (and I thank you for it - I know it's been irregular), will possibly recall some posts I did about nine months ago about the newly announced fixtures for the 2013/2014 Premier League season, and how they may affect the three main races: the title, 4th place and relegation. I did a post on each, and I will now review this as the season draws to a close, and give an indication of who is now the favourite based on the final four fixtures.

This third and final post in the series focuses on the battle to avoid the dreaded drop to the Championship. As I am looking at 7 different teams, this post will be a little less in depth than the other two, but hopefully just as informative and interesting. To find the other posts, click on the links below:

Title race
Champions League battle

First 5:

In my post nine months ago, I said that the relegation battle will involve the most teams, with a range of 7 potentially involved. Having looked at the opening fixtures of the teams involved, I picked my bottom part of the table to be: Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull, Stoke, Crystal Palace, Cardiff and Aston Villa. After surprise results like Aston Villa's victory over Arsenal and Cardiff's win at home to Manchester City, this is how the bottom of the table lined up after five fixtures:

West Brom - 5pts (14th), West Ham - 5pts (15th), Cardiff - 5pts (16th), Norwich - 4pts (17th), Fulham - 4pts (18th), Crystal Palace - 3pts (19th) and Sunderland - 1pt (20th)

So basically, I was way off. I didn't even factor in West Brom, West Ham, Norwich or Fulham on the fixtures, meaning that  Stoke (10th), Hull (11th) Newcastle (12th) and most surprisingly Aston Villa (13th) were not even in the list. Despite this, five games can help someone's season, but it cannot decide whether they stay up and go down (until you get to the final five of course!). As a result, I was not too concerned with my lack of accuracy, but the second check would perhaps give us a better indication of how wrong I was!

Middle 5:

The middle 5 (taken between the dates of 14th December and 1st January - the most congested period of the season) would hopefully provide me with an opportunity to reclaim some lost pride. Taken purely on these 5 fixtures, I came up with a mini table to show which teams will take the most points from this period. This would contribute to the table, but would not necessarily indicate who is destined for the drop. Based on the fixtures, I predicted that the mini table of 7 would look like this: Sunderland, Stoke, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Cardiff, Hull and Crystal Palace. In reality, it looked like this:

Newcastle (7pts), Sunderland (6pts), Hull (5pts), Stoke (5pts), Aston Villa (4pts), Cardiff (4pts), Crystal Palace (4pts)

Again, I was wrong. Though in my defence, not quite as badly wrong as I had initially been. Of the bottom three, I accurately predicted two, and managed to suggest that the two North East clubs would be well away from danger when the time came. Nevertheless, if we look at the table as a whole by the time we get to New Year's Day, we see a wholly different complexion: West Brom - 21pts (14th), Norwich - 20pts (15th), Fulham - 19pts (16th), Cardiff - 18pts (17th), Crystal Palace - 17pts (18th), West Ham - 15pts (19th), Sunderland - 14pts (20th). Whether this means my test is not as accurate as those for the Champions League or the title race (although read those to see the issues I have had!), I am not sure, but certainly it is some way from my initial expectations at the beginning of the season.

So what happened since?

Well, a lot. Two of the bottom three at that time ended completely safe and free of danger, with Crystal Palace pulling off a master stroke in hiring Tony Pulis (whose appointment I actually disagreed with at the time but shhhhh!) and West Ham relying on Big Sam Allardyce to get them out of it, which he duly did. Sunderland pulled off the greatest of great escapes, with the 2-2 draw at the Etihad, sparking the most incredible of results. Away wins at Chelsea and Manchester United, along with a home success against West Brom ensured that the Black Cats steered themselves out of what seemed an impossible situation with one match to spare. With Fulham and Cardiff unable to drag themselves from their hole (meaning that Felix Magath suffered his first relegation as a manager), it was Norwich that bore the brunt of the Sunderland escape. Their incredibly tough end to the season ultimately condemned them to the Championship, but it was the lack of fight in games involving sides around them that cost the Canaries their place in the top tier.

In the final five fixtures, I expected this to be the mini league table: Stoke, Aston Villa, Cardiff, Crystal Palace, Hull, Sunderland and Newcastle. However, incredible runs for Sunderland and Crystal Palace meant it ended like this:

Sunderland (12pts), Crystal Palace (8pts), Stoke City (7pts), Aston Villa (4pts), Cardiff (4pts), Newcastle (3pts), Hull (1pt)

And my prediction?

Overall, I predicted that all three of the promoted sides would return to the Championship based on the fixtures. However, it is almost never that this actually occurs, and this is another example. Crystal Palace's inspired managerial alteration kept them clear of danger, whilst Hull's consistency ensured that they would have a cup final day, along with a Premier League place to treasure. Other than Cardiff, I didn't even include the two sides that ended up going down, as I believed them to be relatively safe!

Final table: Newcastle - 49pts (10th), Crystal Palace - 45pts (11th), Sunderland - 38pts (14th), Aston Villa - 38pts (15th), Hull - 37pts (16th), Cardiff - 30pts (20th)

So in the end, an interesting, but inconsistent test. Fixtures are a good indicator of form, which is a good indicator of performance, but it doesn't always work out like that. With external affairs able to alter that in the flip of a switch (the ownership debacle at Leeds is the perfect example of this), there is only so much that looking at the fixtures can do. Nevertheless, it does go to show that whilst the fixture organisers attempt to be objective and unbiased, they inevitably disadvantage some teams more than others.

Who Has Benefitted From The Managerial Merry-Go-Round?

As per usual, the Premier League has thrown up another season of managerial changes, shock sackings and new heroes. I thought this was a good a time as any, as the footballing world is currently revelling in a rather significant departure this week (if you're a football fan and don't know who I mean, where are you? And if you aren't a football fan, why are you reading this?). Anyway, backroom swaps during the season can have a significant effect on the team, be it positive or negative. This post is designed to look at who has benefitted from these changes, and why that may be. On the opposite side of the coin, I will also look at the teams most negatively effected, and how this has impacted on their season.

Firstly, it is worth showing this table. There have been nine managerial changes, at eight different clubs this season, and the below table shows the points per game (PPG) before and after the switch.

Team	Manager Out (Games)	PPG	Manager In (Games)	PPG
Cardiff City	Malky Mackay (18)	0.94	Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (15)	0.8
Crystal Palace	Ian Holloway (8)	0.38	Tony Pulis (24)	1.63
Fulham	Martin Jol (13)	0.77	Rene Meulensteen (13)	0.77
Fulham	Rene Meulensteen (13)	0.77	Felix Magath (9)	1.11
Norwich City	Chris Hughton (32)	0.97	Neil Adams (3)	0
Swansea City	Michael Laudrup (24)	1	Garry Monk (11)	1.09
Sunderland	Paolo di Canio (5)	0.2	Gus Poyet (27)	1.04
Tottenham Hotspur	Andre Villas Boas (16)	1.69	Tim Sherwood (19)	1.89
West Bromwich Albion	Steve Clarke (16)	0.94	Pepe Mel (13)	0.92

From this table, we can clearly see that some changes have worked, whilst other have spectacularly failed. Of the nine changes, five saw positive changes in terms of points per game (though Garry Monk's is so marginal that I hesitate to rank it alongside Tony Pulis), suggesting that it is very much the luck of the draw as to whether a team can pick themselves up under a new manager. At clubs like Crystal Palace and Sunderland, this has clearly worked, with Pulis and Poyet coming in and revitalising their clubs (ok, Sunderland remain bottom, but we will see later the predicament that they would have been in had di Canio remained). However, Cardiff and West Brom's switches demonstrates that perhaps the grass is not always greener on the other side.

So how would they be doing had they kept their original managers? Here would be the points and position each would have had that been the case:

Spurs - 59pts (6th (NC), -4pts)
Swansea - 35pts (14th (-1), -1pt)
Norwich - 34pts (15th (+1), +2pts)
Cardiff - 33pts (16th (+2), +3pts)
West Brom - 33pts (17th (-1), 0pts)
Fulham - 27pts (18th (+1), -3pts)
Crystal Palace - 13pts (19th (-8), -30pts)
Sunderland - 7pts (20th (NC), -22pts)

As we can see, it is Cardiff and Norwich that would see the benefit of retaining their managers, with both being pulled away from the immediate relegation battle. Certainly not by enough to clear them of trouble altogether, but it would perhaps have given them those vital couple of points they be missing come May. However, as we can see from the stats above in PPG, it is Sunderland and Crystal Palace that have made the best choices in replacing their managers, gaining 22 and 30 points respectively. Further up the table, by keeping Villas Boas, Spurs would find themselves just two points clear of Manchester United, putting them under increasing pressure for the final Europa League place.

So are there any obvious reasons that some teams find it easier to change managers mid season than others? There are two that instantly spring to mind. Firstly, looking at the statistics, it is interesting to note that of those brought in, three were managers from abroad with no managerial experience in the Premier League. Just as a new player will take time to readjust to the tactics and physical nature of the English game, so too a manager will. It is therefore no surprise to find that only one of the four managed to better his predecessor's record (and that was Felix Magath, a man well experienced in European management). Though it seems too self-evident to draw the conclusion that foreign managers with little experience like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Pepe Mel will inevitably find it harder than the people they replaced, evidently the boards of Cardiff and West Brom have not learnt that lesson.

Another trend that is discernible from the statistics is that those managers that take over from the previous incumbents having previously been a coach at the club do as well, if not better than the men they served under. Both Tim Sherwood and Garry Monk have recorded better results than their predecessors, with even the beleaguered and maligned Rene Meulensteen equalling that of Martin Jol. This implies that there is much in understanding the players and club, especially if you have some history and passion for the institution. I maintain that this is why Sir Alex Ferguson continued to have success at Manchester United with a frankly poor squad last year (not forgetting a good dose of Fergie time!), and why David Moyes struggled. It will be incredibly interesting to see if Ryan Giggs, being an ex-coach and player at the club for over 20 years, will continue this trend. It seems silly to judge him on the final four games, but should he retain control into next season, it will be incredibly interesting to look at his record versus that of Moyes. If the stats I have found are anything to go on, United will see a distinct incline in results.

The second point I can imagine making a considerable difference is if the group inherited by the new man is full of egos or destructive personalities. Even one difficult player can ruin a new manager's authority (although it must be said that the more adversarial managers like Felix Magath and Tony Pulis would probably succeed regardless!). Interestingly, it is at Cardiff, where Craig Bellamy remains a strong presence in the dressing room, and West Brom and Fulham (Dimitar Berbatov), clubs used to being in the top half rather than fighting against relegation, where issues have come. Clubs like Crystal Palace are, in my opinion, much more open to a new manager, as they are relatively inexperienced at Premier League level, and seem willing to learn from a manager more accustomed to the league. This is somewhat undermined by the success of Gus Poyet (although he was taking over from Paolo di Canio, who was frankly mental!) and that of Garry Monk and Tim Sherwood, though their progress has been previously explained.

It is therefore interesting to examine the clubs that have stuck with their managers, despite the pressure. West Ham, Stoke and Aston Villa are prime examples of this, as at one time or another, all have come in for stick. However, all have managed to avoid trouble (largely), with only Aston Villa with any realistic chance of being dragged into the relegation scrap, but even that is remote. Both West Ham and Stoke have seen remarkable runs of results after their boards publically backed their managers, implying that stability does make a difference to on-field performances. Ultimately, they have reaped their rewards, but these instances remain in the minority and something to applaud. Unfortunately, football remains caught in the grip of short-termism, and nothing says this better than the dismissal of Moyes. Everyone has covered every point in intricate detail, so I will neglect from doing so, but I feel confident in saying that the former Everton man would have found his second season much more comfortable than his first.

As for my question posed in the title, those that have most obviously benefitted from the managerial merry-go-round have been those that have replaced sooner rather than later, and those that have brought in a manager experienced in the ways of the Premier League or with some passionate historical link to the club. Alternatively, the other victors have been those sides that have stuck with their managers through the hard times. As I have said though, as Moyes' sacking shows, I just don't see that being a common theme in the overly-financialised game that is modern football.