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Hull, Swansea and Sunderland down? Bournemouth, Watford, Middlesbrough, Burnley, West Brom and Crystal Palace safe? Maybe, maybe not

December 23, 2016December 23, 2016 by Colin Randall

John McCormick: We’re not bottom, so is it a Happy Christmas?

Wrinkly Pete alluded to my dodgy numbers in his post earlier in the week so here’s an overview on our performance to date, along with that of the clubs named in the headline, which were chosen by a free and democratic poll at the start of the season. I’m keeping it brief – only a quick trip to set the scene for a “before and after” post early in the new year, and I’ve included Swansea this time, on the grounds that some people did vote for “another club” and they fit the bill, being as it were, eleven Swans a sinking

Sunderland, Hull and ‘Boro descending; Watford rising; Palace, West Brom, Burnley and Bournemouth on the level

November 11, 2016 by Colin Randall

John McCormick: stats is thirsty work

During the close season we gave readers the opportunity to select their relegation favourites from the entire Premier league. Then we asked readers to select three candidates from the eight clubs which came top.

By the season’s start some 3,500 votes had been cast in our relegation poll

Hull were firm favourites to go down, with Burnley and Sunderland giving the North a full house. Watford weren’t far behind Sunderland, then came ‘Boro, Bournemouth and West Brom, followed by one hundred votes for “another club” and finally Crystal Palace, whose 67 votes (we got three times as many to become third favourites) must surely mean safety for them.

Sunderland v Crystal Palace prize Guess the Score. Duck-breaking time?

September 22, 2016 by Colin Randall

Jake: 'M Salut is dishing out enough mugs to be sure of going broke' — Jake: ‘M Salut is dishing out enough mugs to be sure of going broke’

Let’s throw another mug into the ring and hope it doesn’t shatter into many pieces.

A prize Salut! Sunderland mug – design to suit the allegiance of the winner so Palace fans can enter – is on offer for the Palace game. No one was correct on the QPR score (except our QPR interviewee, John Crowley, and he didn’t post his prediction in the Guess the Score slot.)

Take pity on Hull, Burnley and Sunderland, all doomed before a ball is kicked.

August 13, 2016 by Colin Randall

John McCormick: bored — John McCormick. Impartial, as always

As the days went by our “who’s doomed” poll slipped down the “Salut”front page until it dropped off the bottom like a relegated team.

By then over 3500 votes had been cast. Most came in flurries in the first couple of days and, although I suspect a strong contingent of Sunderland fans cast votes and tried to move us in the general direction of safety, the positions of the eight chosen clubs didn’t change, and nor did the percentages to any significant extent.

Hull, Burnley and Sunderland doomed. Watford, Middlesbrough, Bournemouth, WBA and Palace are safe

August 11, 2016August 8, 2016 by Colin Randall

This season’s relegation poll went live at about 8.30 on Wednesday morning. By 2.30 some eighteen hundred votes had been cast. Hull received about a third of them and remained clear favourites. Burnley stayed in second place, although the gap had widened, and we had moved up to third. The other five clubs were well behind:

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Hull, Burnley, Bournemouth, Middlesbrough, Watford, Sunderland, West Brom or Crystal Palace. Choose your three

August 3, 2016August 2, 2016 by Colin Randall

It was June 12th when I first put up this season’s relegation poll and July 1st, when the transfer window opened, that I gave you the preliminary results.

Every Premiership club received some votes. Man Utd got thirteen. Spurs and Arsenal (last relegated in the year the Royal Flying Corps established its first airfield) both got ten. Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea received six each, as did Stoke. West Ham were the second best fancied team, with four votes, while Everton received only two votes and are thus deemed most likely to stay in the top division (something they have managed every year since the end of rationing) but not entirely safe.

Given such wishful thinking I had to do some winnowing so I chose 100 votes as the cut-off, which gave me a reasonable number of 8 clubs to watch, and you can see the results in the title above.

The people have spoken: Hull, Burnley and Bournemouth to leave the union

July 1, 2016 by Colin Randall

Would you believe that some people, somewhere, think Man Utd will be relegated? And that others say the axe will fall on Spurs, Chelsea, or Man City. Some even say Arsenal will go down.

That’s democracy for you, so please, please, no histrionics, vitriol or gratuitous insults. There have been enough of them these past few weeks and it’s time for civilised behaviour between gentlefolk, like we always get when discussing football.

Your verdicts: Sunderland’s kit and are Burnley, Hull, Watford for drop?

June 22, 2016June 19, 2016 by Colin Randall

Jake: 'sometimes you just have to meddle in other people's business' — Jake: ‘sometimes you just have to meddle in what we hope will be other people’s business’

This post has no purpose beyond letting everyone know they can not only have a punt on the outcome of matches at Euro 2016 by checking out Online Soccer Betting but still vote in our two current polls.

One, which has already attracted a lot of interest, invites your views on who will go down at the end of next season. There are plenty of contenders and Sunderland have a few unwelcome votes (all probably from opposing supporters), but our 5.8 per cent is manageable.

[polldaddy poll=9439592]

Relegation poll: Middlesbrough, Hull or Sunderland? Arsenal and Manchester Utd? Vote now

June 21, 2016June 12, 2016 by Colin Randall

I’m getting a bit tired of the title (and Monsieur Salut should apologise to any reader lured here by thoughts it was a poll on religion; the word inexplicably replaced relegation in the headline when published and still appeared some time later at the newsnow.co.uk site) .

But just because we have some decent players, led by one of the Premier League’s most experienced managers and backed by a tremendous crowd, we can’t assume we’re safe.

Our record is not good. We’ve been one of the survivors for too many seasons and we can’t take anything for granted. Even now there will be some fans somewhere rubbing their hands as they look at the fixtures and thinking ‘Sunderland, that’s an easy three points’.

Relegation watch revisited (2): It was the draws wot done it

June 4, 2016June 4, 2016 by Colin Randall

The season before last we won only 7 games and we stayed up. We even finished above Aston Villa, who won 10, as well as QPR and Hull City, whose 8 wins each could not stave off relegation. The other relegated team, Burnley, had 7 wins, the same as us.

The difference between us and Burnley was that we achieved 17 draws, and lost only (only??) 14 games. They could manage only 12 draws, and their five fewer points meant they finished second bottom, three places below us.

And thinking about that got me started on the notion of win-loss ratios, which became the tool I used to track clubs in last season’s relegation watch.