At the start of the season some 7,696 votes had been cast in our relegation poll. As you can see below, the clear favourites to go down were AFC Bournemouth, Watford and Sunderland, with Norwich then Leicester following behind. Aston Villa and NUFC were also given as possibilities; Villa weren’t far behind Leicester but fewer people went for NUFC and even fewer opted for a club outside the chosen seven.
Monsieur Salut has already – a little gloomily – speculated that next Saturday’s game at home to Norwich may be the season’s first relegation six-pointer. He also had a conversation with a French acquaintance who remembered almost every detail of Yann M’Vila’s fall from French international grace.
Leicester left Pete Sixsmith in downbeat mood, too, but not enough to put him off scuttling back from the Midlands to catch a Sunderland Under 21s match – against Norwich. He saw a win but also an embarrassing start to M’Vila’s SAFC career …
It is fair to say Pete Sixsmith does not care greatly who wins the Premier League title, at least not while we seem not quite up to the challenge ourselves.
So do not be surprised that he gives a different answer to the question depending on when he is asked.
There’s a week to go, more or less, to the big kick-off so it’s time to revisit our dodgy numbers relegation stakes. 6,373 votes were cast in our poll, with Bournemouth and Watford being consistently clear favourites for the drop since the early days:
Casual visitors to this site might might not be aware that at the start of last season I made a prediction about who would suffer relegation from the Premiership and then tracked those clubs (and SAFC, of course) over the season. At the end of my final post of the series I set up a poll to see who readers thought would be relegated at the end of the coming season.
With almost four hundred votes cast you might think the results bear scrutiny. But think again. The average PL attendance is 36,000. MOTD can attract over 4 million. More than 26 million viewers watched FA Cup action on TV during last January. So a few hundred’s really small beer, especially as each reader can have three votes.
John McCormick writes:
So you’ve been onto the SAFC home page, clicked the appropriate icon and found the fixtures. No need for me to do much then, is there? Only, M Salut, who is travelling today, would be delighted to find the site that carries his name has not ignored this (pretty much) inauspicious occasion.
John McCormick writes: back in January various sources ran the news that all of 2013-14’s Premiership clubs were in the world’s top 40 in terms of revenue. While Norwich, Fulham and Cardiff won’t stay there for 2016 I expect Burnley, QPR and Leicester to replace them. Looking ahead to 2017, Burnley, Hull and QPR should drop out with Norwich reappearing, along with Watford and Bournemouth; that’s the power of the Premier …
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