Relegation watch

UPDATE with the Easter weekend games:

With an interesting set of results, and a couple of teams idle on Monday (West Ham and Sheffield United), you really do have to think the final two relegation spots will come from five teams (West Ham, Sheffield United, Charlton, Wigan and Fulham).

Charlton hauled themselves out of the bottom three over the weekend whilst Wigan picked up another couple of points.

Biggest winners? Ourselves of course - who'd have thought we'd have hit the forty point mark at Easter? Most were nervous we'd get there by the end of the season...


Although I think 38 points should be enough to ensure safety, I don't think anything will be cut and dried until the 40 point target is hit.

Below is the bottom eight with the number of games remaining (GR), current points total (PTS) and target points to hit the 40 mark (TARGET).

GR PTS TARGET
City 6 40 achieved April 9th
Boro 5 39 1
Villa 5 39 1
Fulham 5 35 5
Wigan 5 34 6
Charlton 5 32 8
Sheff Utd 6 31 9
West Ham 6 29 11
Watford 5 23 17* no longer possible

Any two from eight

It really is tight at the bottom end of the table at the moment, mainly in part to back to back wins from ourselves, Charlton and West Ham which has now meant there are just seven points between the Newcastle in eleventh and Charlton in eighteenth as all teams in the bottom half have now been dragged into the relegation battle:

* Aston Villa's 1-1 draw last night at home to Everton is not included in the table.

It is a strange situation in that having won two games on the road, points wise we are now better off in terms of safety, but have managed to drag half a dozen sides into it.

It is conceivable that after this weekends games both Charlton and West Ham could be out of the bottom three and it is often that the Easter period - whilst not deciding matters, does go a long way in shaping the final outcome.

Assuming that Watford are dead and buried (the plucky display against Chelsea probably summed up their season perfectly), then it is two from eight heading into the Easter fixtures - although this should see some sides do themselves a big favour and being all but safe come this time next week..

Looking at the fixtures, it suddenly becomes even more of a nervous times for teams and what is striking is the number of games that are to be contested between sides in the bottom half with what could be a massive game on the final day of the season between Wigan and Sheffield United.

They also do illustrate that despite the good work in recent games by Charlton and West Ham, the do (West Ham in particular) have the toughest of the run-ins, whilst if Wigan and Sheffield United do drop out of the league then they have only themselves to blame.

Remaing fixtures:

Newcastle - Sheffield United, Arsenal, Portsmouth, Chelsea, Reading, Watford.
Middlesbrough - Watford, Aston Villa, Liverpool, United, Tottenham, Wigan, Fulham.
City - Charlton, Fulham, Liverpool, Arsenal, Watford, Aston Villa, United, Tottenham.
Fulham - Everton, City, Reading, Blackburn, Arsenal, Liverpool, Arsenal.
Aston Villa - Blackburn, Wigan, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, City, Sheffield United, Bolton.
Wigan - Bolton, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Liverpool, West Ham, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United.
Sheffield United - Newcastle, West Ham, United, Charlton, Watford, Aston Villa, Wigan.
Charlton - City, Reading, Everton, Sheffield United, Blackburn, Tottenham, Liverpool.
West Ham - Arsenal, Sheffield United, Chelsea, Everton, Wigan, Bolton, United.

Fancy a flutter?

From William Hill:

Under pressure Manchester City boss Stuart Pearce is
8/1 with William Hill no longer to be City boss by kick-off time of their
weekend game against Middlesbro.Pearce is already odds-on favourite to be the
next Premiership manager to leave his club this season following Manchester
City's Cup defeat by Blackburn, withWilliam Hill making him 5/6 to be the next
to go this campaign and also offering7/1 Curbishley; 25/1Pardew; 40/1 Boothroyd.
They also offer 11/10 that no more managers will leave their club this
season.But with City facing Chelsea in midweek, a game which they are 11/2
outsiders to win, with Chelsea 4/9 and the draw 13/5, Hills are offering 8/1
that the City manager will have departed before they play Boro. 'Pearce is a
proud man and a heavy defeat at home, even to the champions, would be bound to
produce critical crowd reaction which could make him decide to walk away or
prompt his sacking' said Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe.City are currently 11/2
with Hills to be relegated this season.

Survival prediction

Chris Bailey at the MEN looked at our league run-in today to assess our chances of staying up in comparison to some of the other sides down at the bottom of the table and concluded that - only just, we would be safe and it may be that Fulham could be dragged into the mix if one of the bottom three gets their act together and goes on a decent run.

He pinpointed the 37 point mark as being enough, in comparison to the 38 mark I have used previously.

It looks like the BBC have put together their own final table predictor where you can input the results for the remaining games to see what the final table would like.

If anyone has a go of it, feel free to post in the comments the points total and where you had us finishing.

Let the pessimism begin!

How far from safety?

The MEN ran a piece recently entitled 'Things are looking up for City', in which it very much put a positive spin on the final third of the season and how we can look to crack the top ten and move on from there.

Perhaps it is us being inactive this weekend, but with the results Wigan and Charlton have got this past week it does drag us back into the mire a little bit - or certainly casting a nervous glance over our shoulders at the drop zone.

A couple of weeks ago I thought that potentially even thirty-five points may be good enough to ensure safety as neither of the bottom sides looked capable of putting a significant enough run together to really put us in trouble.

For me, Watford and West Ham are doomed already. Simply Watford are not good enough whilst West Ham just appear a club in absolute turmoil and Alan Curbishley came across as a condemned man in the post match interviews following the 4-0 defeat at The Valley yesterday.

Wigan have been just above the drop zone for the most part of the season, and have yet to have a real consistent run and will have one eye on forthcoming fixtures against ourselves and Charlton to ease themselves out of trouble after pulling off an important victory over Newcastle yesterday.

Charlton are the key side in all of this for me and have ten games remaining - having none of the top five to play (unlike West Ham and Watord), have key players coming back and appear to be rallying around Alan Pardew, and will be looking to hit the thirty-eight point mark, which they may consider enough to keep them up.

I don't think ultimately we will be in any grave danger of the drop (as I have maintained throughout the season), but from a couple of weeks ago it may now seem we need to hit the forty point mark (or at least three wins) to at least guarantee safety.

Three points at home to Wigan next would be a welcome step to achieving that mark though.