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Fans face the pain of the drop
Relegation dogfight
Who’ll make up the bottom three?
With the title race set to reach a dramatic climax, the relegation battle at the other end of the table looks set to go down to the wire.
Bottom placed Derby are now16 points from safety and with manager Paul Jewell looking to next season, they look certain for the drop.
Roy Hodgson’s Fulham, buoyed by their win against Champions league chasing Everton, face a tough fight. A fine performance over the Toffees’ capped a deserved 3 points; however this was only their 4th of the season.With all these wins coming at Craven Cottage and only 3 of them left, they must improve their away form.
Bolton face a tough run facing 5 of the top 8 in their last 9 games. Having lost top scorer Nicolas Anelka to Chelsea, they have struggled in front of goal and have only netted 4 times in their last 8 games and not won since early February.
Birmingham face a more generous fixture list facing 4 of the bottom 8, so Alex McLeish will need to mastermind wins over his rivals to stay in the top flight.
Like many of the candidates for the drop, Roy Keane’s Sunderland suffer from travel sickness, having failed to win away all season. The Irishman, will look to towards the Black Cat’s 4 remaining home games to keep their heads above water.
Newcastle would not have been seen as being in the bottom three at the start of the season, but they failed to win under new manager Kevin Keegan and only scored 3 times in 8 games and many will claim that the Magpies are too good for the drop. As West Ham showed in 2003, with a squad that boosted Defoe, James, Joe Cole, Carrick, and Di Canio, no side is good to stay up.
Reading, after losing at Anfield have only collected six points from a possible 30 and are failing to show the kind of form that faired them so well last season.
Steve Bruce has worked wonders on his Wigan side and they look in healthy form to stay up. They now have not conceded in their last 4 games and have collected 10 points from a possible 12 at home this season. However they will be dreading the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Portsmouth and Aston Villa on their fixture list.
With just 5 points separating 5 teams from 19th to 14th, this could well go down to the last game of the season The home form will prove interesting all face tough away fixtures, and with a mere 7 weeks left, many supporters will hardly be able to look as their team good get sucked into the drop.
How Newcastle could deal with Alan Shearer at the moment he bagged in 261 Premiership goals and is the record scorer in the division
Bolton were riding high again in the Premiership and chasing a UEFA cup place for the second time in succession seasons under Sam Alladyce.