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Daniel Brigham

The relegation candidates - latest blog

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In moments of rare sympathy for Glenn Roeder I find myself wondering

what it would be like to hear 25,000 people barking “you don''t know what

you''re doing” at you for 90 minutes.Pretty humiliating.

Emotionally painful. It cuts straight to the core of what you do: a

whole stadium directly telling you that you''re no good at your job.It is also the most misused chants in football. Because, unless they’re taking off Gary Lineker for Alan Smith, managers do tend to know what they’re doing. Except, it seems, when it comes to transfer deadline day. Did Paolo Di Canio, Joe Kinnear and Ian Holloway know what they were doing on Monday? It appears not. Their

transfer dealings, along with, to some extent, Steve Clarke’s and

Martin Jol’s, means their teams will be in for a long season of

relegation paranoia.  So, who’s going down?The threat of

relegation – which becomes more and more agonising the longer Norwich

are in the Premier League – is unlikely to trouble Chris Hughton this

season. He has spent wisely. Leroy Fer brings a Vierraesque presence in

midfield that Norwich have lacked since, well, ever. RvW is a willing

worker with an innate understanding of how to get into the right place

to score goals and Nathan Redmond is a matchwinner. Would any of those

three look out of place in the squads of the top six? It''s a measure of

how far the club has come. Southampton should also be safe.

Although there are still doubts about Mauricio Pochettino – have they

really improved since sacking Nigel Adkins? – they have also recruited

well (while admittedly paying above the odds). Cardiff have a clever

manager who sets teams up to expose opposition weakness in much the same

way Paul Lambert did and a team that can score goals. Stoke are

enjoying their football again and West Ham, despite missing out on

several targets, have a mid-table squad and a manager who just does not

do relegation. Both Palace and Sunderland have reacted to the

gift of the TV gazillions by buying every player, ever. Between them, Di

Canio and Holloway, the footballing equivalent of Bottom''s Eddie and

Richie, have bought in 27 players. On average, that''s one player bought

every 56 hours during the transfer window. Technically, that is mental. So

rapid was Palace’s spree on the last day that three players who started

their first match of the season haven''t made their 25-man squad.

Hannibal, who absolutely loved it when a plan came together, would be

chewing on his cigar in horror at the lack of planning. The most

familiar of Palace''s signings, former Arsenal lump Marouane Chamakh,

might well score a lot of goals for them, but only in the same way that

Danny Dyer might one day play James Bond. They’ll scrap away but, like a

dog trying to dig a hole under a brick wall, the scrapping will be

futile.   If Holloway is mad in a tiresome-old-uncle way, then

Di Canio is mad in a 10-year-stretch-in-Belmarsh way. He has captured

three very good players in Emanuele Giaccerini, Andrea Dossena and

Modibo Diakite but Sunderland fans are already worried that Di Canio

takes the word ‘capture’ far too literally. So severe are his training

methods that no one would be surprised if he locks his players in cages

overnight, feeding them with scraps of raw meat. It appears he

still hasn’t learnt the first rule of Premier League management: don''t

** off your players in public. They really don''t like it. They know they

can find a new club far easier than the manager can, so why would they

put up with a boss who is constantly berating them? As well as

putting up with Di Canio’s machine-gun ego, Sunderland will also have to

make do without goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. It can already be argued

that he has saved four points for his new club Liverpool in just three

games, and it shows just how vital a quality keeper is; for a team like

Sunderland four points could be the difference between Yeovil away next

season or maintaining Premier League football. Goalkeeping is

also an issue at West Brom, who will have to make do without Ben Foster

for three months. The club obviously recognise this, which is why they

have brought in Lee Camp. Good luck with that. Like a lottery

winner insisting on renting their washing machine, West Brom have also

continued their curious policy of spending very little and relying on

loans and frees despite several seasons in the Premier League. One man

could have transformed their entire season, but Romelu Lukaku chose

Everton. Instead they’ve ended up swapping him for Victor Anichibe,

which is like trading in Ryan Gosling for Ryan from Blue. Stephane

Sessegnong, Diego Lugano, Matej Vydra and Scott Sinclair are all clever

signings (they even paid money for Sessegnong), but still West Brom

appear allergic to building for the future. That sense of myopia can be

cancerous to a squad: what exactly are they playing for? What’s the

long-term goal?Fulham are in a similar position. Dimitar

Berbetov and Bryan Ruiz have been supplemented in the transfer window by

Adel Taarabt and Darren Bent. It is a foursome to rival the Rat Pack

for luxurious glamour, but ask Sinatra, and Dean Martin to track back on

a cold night in Stoke and they would have had you shot by the Mafia

(possibly). Fulham remind me of the Sydney Opera House when it

first opened: sleek, good-looking and stylish but with one major

problem. It had only one toilet. With so much lazy flair in the

attacking players it is too much to ask Steve Sidwell and new recruit

Scott Parker – the men who do the vital toilet work – to stop Fulham

being pierced open. Any side with a bit of pace in their attack – and

that''s most teams these days – will have drawn a big smiley face over

Fulham on the fixtures chart.  While Mike Ashley continues his

excellent impression of what a Sunderland fan would do if they owned

Newcastle, Alan Pardew still has enough good players to avoid a repeat

of last season. While many moan that Joe Kinnear has done nothing in the

transfer window, that''s probably for the best. Perhaps someone pointed

out to him that Vinnie Jones and Hans Segers were no longer available.Either

way, with the returning Hatem Ben Arfa and plenty of quality signed in

January it is inconceivable that Newcastle will go down despite the best

efforts of Ashley and Kinnear.Finally, Hull. They’ve spent the

least of the three promoted sides but Tom Huddlestone and Jake Livermore

are excellent acquisitions and Hull should compete strongly in midfield

against the teams around them. They will have been disappointed to miss

out on Shane Long on the last day of the transfer window and whether

they can stay up may depend on how often loan signings but Gedo and

Danny Graham can find the net. So, my three for Yeovil away next

season? Palace are doomed. Their manager lacks nous, their squad lacks

quality. Di Canio is too much of a volatile oddball for his Sunderland

players to want to play for him and even if he’s sacked a new boss won’t

be able to do much with such a hit-and-miss squad. The final spot is

between Hull, Fulham and West Brom. As tempting as it is to

think that the identity crisis that both Fulham and WBA are suffering

from will drag one of them into the Championship, logic suggests that

Hull don’t have enough goals in them to stay up. When you’re relying on

two on-loan strikers keeping you up, there is usually only one way your

season will go.Daniel Brigham is features editor of The Cricketer magazine.Follow him on Twitter: @cricketer_dan

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[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]

So, my three for Yeovil away next

season?[/quote]

 

They are that bad they''re going to drop two divisions?

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Good read[Y]From a personal point of view I haven''t given that end of the table much thought, as I genuinely don''t think it will concern us this season.

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Daniel,I think it is simply too early to tell until some of the randomness of the early fixture schedule evens itself out. For example, we have not had a single match yet where I would have been happy to take a guranteed point before the match started. However, if this doesnt sound illogical, history does tell us that there are usually one or two teams who get off to a bad start (simply through fixture scheduling, injuries and luck) who then find it difficult to recover. In this respect, I think West Brom will be starting to feel anxious about losing twice at home against mid table rivals and Sunderland just anxious full stop.I think all the newly promoted teams are going to struggle to score enough, but I have liked the way that Hull are organised and I could see them grinding out points. Palace are going to leak more than Hull and I really cant see them staying up, but I have yet to see Cardiff play.Of the remining teams, I think will see as per usual blanket finish between 38 points and 46 points whereby a win on the last day could make the difference between flirting with relegation and 8th/9th, just like happened to us last year. There really is little diffference between most of the non-top six teams on a week in and week out business. Decisive factors are normally consistency or hot streaks where draws or converted in to losses.May I suggest that we ressurect your thread after say six matches and have another look?

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For my part I would argue that at this stage it can be nothing more than speculation no matter how well reasoned your points may seem now. After a dozen games we will begin to see the picture and as history has shown us, two of the bottom five at that stage are certain to be relegated. Until then I''m not prepared to put my head on the chopping block other than to say that Palace and Hull are very likely to feature in that equation..

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I really enjoyed this piece of writing Daniel and found myself nodding in agreement with almost all of it. Easily the best of your blogs so far.

Only quibble I''d have is WBA. I actually think that they''ve brought in a few good players, and I would have had Sessegnon here like a shot.

Don''t see them being too near the bottom. Sunderland and Newcastle are worse than them in my view. Palace, Sunderland and Hull for me, followed by Newcastle and Stoke.

Thanks for the entertaining read

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[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]In moments of rare sympathy for Glenn Roeder I find myself wondering

what it would be like to hear 25,000 people barking “you don''t know what

you''re doing” at you for 90 minutes.Pretty humiliating.

Emotionally painful. It cuts straight to the core of what you do: a

whole stadium directly telling you that you''re no good at your job.It is also the most misused chants in football. Because, unless they’re taking off Gary Lineker for Alan Smith, managers do tend to know what they’re doing. Except, it seems, when it comes to transfer deadline day. Did Paolo Di Canio, Joe Kinnear and Ian Holloway know what they were doing on Monday? It appears not. Their

transfer dealings, along with, to some extent, Steve Clarke’s and

Martin Jol’s, means their teams will be in for a long season of

relegation paranoia.  So, who’s going down?The threat of

relegation – which becomes more and more agonising the longer Norwich

are in the Premier League – is unlikely to trouble Chris Hughton this

season. He has spent wisely. Leroy Fer brings a Vierraesque presence in

midfield that Norwich have lacked since, well, ever. RvW is a willing

worker with an innate understanding of how to get into the right place

to score goals and Nathan Redmond is a matchwinner. Would any of those

three look out of place in the squads of the top six? It''s a measure of

how far the club has come. Southampton should also be safe.

Although there are still doubts about Mauricio Pochettino – have they

really improved since sacking Nigel Adkins? – they have also recruited

well (while admittedly paying above the odds). Cardiff have a clever

manager who sets teams up to expose opposition weakness in much the same

way Paul Lambert did and a team that can score goals. Stoke are

enjoying their football again and West Ham, despite missing out on

several targets, have a mid-table squad and a manager who just does not

do relegation. Both Palace and Sunderland have reacted to the

gift of the TV gazillions by buying every player, ever. Between them, Di

Canio and Holloway, the footballing equivalent of Bottom''s Eddie and

Richie, have bought in 27 players. On average, that''s one player bought

every 56 hours during the transfer window. Technically, that is mental. So

rapid was Palace’s spree on the last day that three players who started

their first match of the season haven''t made their 25-man squad.

Hannibal, who absolutely loved it when a plan came together, would be

chewing on his cigar in horror at the lack of planning. The most

familiar of Palace''s signings, former Arsenal lump Marouane Chamakh,

might well score a lot of goals for them, but only in the same way that

Danny Dyer might one day play James Bond. They’ll scrap away but, like a

dog trying to dig a hole under a brick wall, the scrapping will be

futile.   If Holloway is mad in a tiresome-old-uncle way, then

Di Canio is mad in a 10-year-stretch-in-Belmarsh way. He has captured

three very good players in Emanuele Giaccerini, Andrea Dossena and

Modibo Diakite but Sunderland fans are already worried that Di Canio

takes the word ‘capture’ far too literally. So severe are his training

methods that no one would be surprised if he locks his players in cages

overnight, feeding them with scraps of raw meat. It appears he

still hasn’t learnt the first rule of Premier League management: don''t

** off your players in public. They really don''t like it. They know they

can find a new club far easier than the manager can, so why would they

put up with a boss who is constantly berating them? As well as

putting up with Di Canio’s machine-gun ego, Sunderland will also have to

make do without goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. It can already be argued

that he has saved four points for his new club Liverpool in just three

games, and it shows just how vital a quality keeper is; for a team like

Sunderland four points could be the difference between Yeovil away next

season or maintaining Premier League football. Goalkeeping is

also an issue at West Brom, who will have to make do without Ben Foster

for three months. The club obviously recognise this, which is why they

have brought in Lee Camp. Good luck with that. Like a lottery

winner insisting on renting their washing machine, West Brom have also

continued their curious policy of spending very little and relying on

loans and frees despite several seasons in the Premier League. One man

could have transformed their entire season, but Romelu Lukaku chose

Everton. Instead they’ve ended up swapping him for Victor Anichibe,

which is like trading in Ryan Gosling for Ryan from Blue. Stephane

Sessegnong, Diego Lugano, Matej Vydra and Scott Sinclair are all clever

signings (they even paid money for Sessegnong), but still West Brom

appear allergic to building for the future. That sense of myopia can be

cancerous to a squad: what exactly are they playing for? What’s the

long-term goal?Fulham are in a similar position. Dimitar

Berbetov and Bryan Ruiz have been supplemented in the transfer window by

Adel Taarabt and Darren Bent. It is a foursome to rival the Rat Pack

for luxurious glamour, but ask Sinatra, and Dean Martin to track back on

a cold night in Stoke and they would have had you shot by the Mafia

(possibly). Fulham remind me of the Sydney Opera House when it

first opened: sleek, good-looking and stylish but with one major

problem. It had only one toilet. With so much lazy flair in the

attacking players it is too much to ask Steve Sidwell and new recruit

Scott Parker – the men who do the vital toilet work – to stop Fulham

being pierced open. Any side with a bit of pace in their attack – and

that''s most teams these days – will have drawn a big smiley face over

Fulham on the fixtures chart.  While Mike Ashley continues his

excellent impression of what a Sunderland fan would do if they owned

Newcastle, Alan Pardew still has enough good players to avoid a repeat

of last season. While many moan that Joe Kinnear has done nothing in the

transfer window, that''s probably for the best. Perhaps someone pointed

out to him that Vinnie Jones and Hans Segers were no longer available.Either

way, with the returning Hatem Ben Arfa and plenty of quality signed in

January it is inconceivable that Newcastle will go down despite the best

efforts of Ashley and Kinnear.Finally, Hull. They’ve spent the

least of the three promoted sides but Tom Huddlestone and Jake Livermore

are excellent acquisitions and Hull should compete strongly in midfield

against the teams around them. They will have been disappointed to miss

out on Shane Long on the last day of the transfer window and whether

they can stay up may depend on how often loan signings but Gedo and

Danny Graham can find the net. So, my three for Yeovil away next

season? Palace are doomed. Their manager lacks nous, their squad lacks

quality. Di Canio is too much of a volatile oddball for his Sunderland

players to want to play for him and even if he’s sacked a new boss won’t

be able to do much with such a hit-and-miss squad. The final spot is

between Hull, Fulham and West Brom. As tempting as it is to

think that the identity crisis that both Fulham and WBA are suffering

from will drag one of them into the Championship, logic suggests that

Hull don’t have enough goals in them to stay up. When you’re relying on

two on-loan strikers keeping you up, there is usually only one way your

season will go.Daniel Brigham is features editor of The Cricketer magazine.Follow him on Twitter: @cricketer_dan[/quote]

Sessegnong? Berbetov?Binner.

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[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]Thanks Louis Cyphre. Reading it back I wish I''d has a bit more time to write it!

Who do you think will be relegated?[/quote]Chops, it is very easy to be a knocker, but I really enjoyed Daniel''s contribution and he has already acknowledged the typos.

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Killiecanary - I agree WBA have made some clever signings. If I was a fan I''d be worried that they don''t really have any sense of direction about them though. I think they''ll be safe though.

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Daniel/Killie,WBA have got one hell of a Lukaku sized hole in their attack. Anelka is a risk on many levels, Vydra is unproven, Amechibe (spelling?) hasnt ripped any trees at Everton in 3 or 4 years and Long must be shattered by being made to be a pawn between WBA and Hull. On top of this, they have played three games (two of which have been at home agianst mid ranking sides) and scored nil goals. I sometimes worry about us, but we have taken 4 points at home aaginst roughly comprable oppsoition and scored three goals with many critical players injured. Sessegnon is a bit of a wild card though, he will either be a catalyst for them or continue his decline from the Sunderland high watermark.

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I have just looked at the goal stats after three gmes and yes it is early days, but if I was a WBA or Newcastle fan  would be deeply worried about scoring 0 and 1 goal respectively, each from two realtively comfortable home games (Southampton/Swansea) and (West Ham/Fulham). Next worst in the goals scored league is Hull, but they have played Chelsea and Man City away, so I would tend to look more favourably on this that for WBA/Newcastle. Rambling on, yes, but still worth discussing.Out of interest, we are joint 7th after three games. Early days, but encouraging given that we are starting to look tighter at the back than last season''s average.

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RvW''s 4 year contractBased upon the evidence of just three games, I would bet my house on Hull bettering Palace, simply because they have gone away to Chelsea and Man City and not looked outclassed or been humilated. That is something we cant say we have achieved in either of our first two seasons, nevermind our first three games. I think they will be solid, but lack goals, so they willbe reliant on lots of 1-0 and 0-0s. Whwears Palce will probaly reflect their manager''s personality - all over the shop and likleytoconced many more goals, tehreby denying them the ability to grind out a few 1-0''s.

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Nice sig Louis[Y]

 

If you had any class you''d quote it properly so that there could be no doubt what I said ...

 

I still do agree with it though.. 2003/4 was one of the happiest season of all time for me. Shame you didn''t appreciate any of it. I expect that feckin'' Doomcaster''s position spoilt it for you....

 

 

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

Nice sig Louis[Y]

 

If you had any class you''d quote it properly so that there could be no doubt what I said ...

 

I still do agree with it though.. 2003/4 was one of the happiest season of all time for me. Shame you didn''t appreciate any of it. I expect that feckin'' Doomcaster''s position spoilt it for you....

 

 

[/quote]My favourite season was the last promotion season (although I was around for  2003/4). Had some top away games that season. [8] WE BEAT THE SCUM 5-1!

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Yeah.. that was my favourite game of all time buddy. I was trying to make sure I remembered everything that night from the goals to the scoreboard to the faces of the binners as they held their heads in their hands.

 

2003/4 was different for me. It was magical. The whole Huckerby drama and him finally signing. We won the league with 94 points and a +40 goal difference. First time back in the Prem since Chase fled. It was special. Of course I have other favourite seasons for various reasons. But how anybody can look back to 2002/3/4 and suggest failure from the people that ran the club astounds me.

 

 

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[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]Chops - it should be ''24-hour period'' not ''24 hour period''. But no one''s perfect eh.[/quote]Thank you, and I stand corrected.You could really use a comma after "perfect".

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[quote user="Mister Chops"][quote user="Louis Cyphre"]And before you say it, dont play the tongue in cheek card as this simply not needed for a thread like this.[/quote]Wouldn''t dream of it.  It should be obvious that I was sincerely and wholeheartedly calling Daniel a binner.[/quote]Whole-heartedly, perhaps.

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[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]No, I''d say wholeheartedly is fine as one word.[/quote]Thanks.Good blog again, by the way.  Not sure you can call the relegation candidates just yet, and I think Hull might have a bit more about them than many suspect, but an entertaining read.

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"WBA have got one hell of a Lukaku sized hole in their attack. Anelka is a risk on many levels, Vydra is unproven, Amechibe (spelling?) hasnt ripped any trees at Everton in 3 or 4 years and Long must be shattered by being made to be a pawn between WBA and Hull."

 

Fully agree with this. I can see WBA really struggling this season.

 

Shane Long must be thoroughly peeved at having a medical and then having the plug pulled on his transfer at the last moment.

 

Shane Long and the unloved Rosenberg aside, Albion have a completely new forward line and Clarke might well be picking up his P45 before they have time to gel.

 

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Anichebe might surprise a few if he stays fit, his injury issues were one of the reasons he didn''t cut through at Everton but he looks a decent signing to me.

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