There are two managers that need to be shown a lot of praise this season and both were not even managing in the Premier League when it commenced back in August, indeed even by the end of October there was no sign of the managers we are going to talk about. Unai Emery has come into the Aston Villa job and quite simply told everyone how it should be done. When the Spaniard replaced Steven Gerrard at the end of October Villa had won just 2 games from their first 14 and they were heading into a relegation battle. Emery's first game in charge was against Manchester United and he oversaw a 3-1 victory and quite frankly apart from the one blip which saw the club lose three games in a row they haven't looked back. Emery has taken Villa from the bottom five clubs to the top six and they now have a real chance to qualify for Europe next season and as we all know Emery loves European football competitions, he has won the Europa League an incredible four times.
Villa have won 35 points since Emery took over- that's 35 points from a possible 51 and they have also won their last four. Emery has been quite a catch for the club and one has to wonder why teams such as Everton and West Ham who have been regular staples of the top flight have persisted with inexperienced managers or ones that have simply seen their best days when Villa can lure someone of the quality of Emery in. Emery is also another nail in the coffin for the great English manager having replaced a next generation one in Gerrard and is another example that up and coming English managers still have a way to go to make a deep impression.
Another manager who has impressed and yet it has only been two games in but we all know him is Roy Hodgson. Hodgson of course is a veteran of the game having managed for an astounding 47 years. His return as Crystal Palace manager given that he had retired from football came as a shock but at the same time it made sense. With Patrick Vieira sacked, (the Frenchman took over Palace from Hodgson), Roy was brought back in under the condition he would manage only until the end of the season. The lure of coming back to Palace to save the club was too much for Hodgson to resist, but was he taking a gamble? Did he really want his footballing career to end with relegation? Well two games in and Palace look like they will be safe with two wins.
Hodgson's first game back was born out of a Hollywood script as Palace scored the winner in injury time as they beat Leicester 2-1, this led Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers to call it a day. Hodgson's side then played Leeds and trailed by a goal all the while missing forward Wilfried Zaha who has been ruled out for almost a month with groin injury. However the Eagles roared back to win 5-1 and they have moved into 12th place and have 33 points. The likely cut off this season will be 36 and one could believe that another two wins from their remaining 8 games will seal safety. Palace look safe and their next game is against bottom club Southampton. As trophies have eluded Hodgson in his latter years in management it would be quite fitting for him for his final moment in football to keep his beloved Palace side up and it looks like he will get his wish.
So just who will be relegated this season in the Premier League? Every club from 20th up to 12th looked likely to be involved in a relegation battle given how close the points gap has been and in some cases it was whittled down to just four. It does seem safe to presume that Crystal Palace and Wolves are out of the danger zone, not completetly mind, but with the way the season is ending we can still look to seven clubs who are certainly not safe. Southampton in last place and with 23 points look like they will be relegated and they now are four points from safety, but because of goal difference that moves to 5 points and the Saints have shown nothing this season to suggest that they will be able to find the consistency to keep them up. However they look like the only team who could go down so far, and the rest looks like a guess. This includes Everton who have been in the top flight for 70 years and of course only just survived by the skin of their teeth last season.
We have been busy looking at the remaining fixtures for the bottom seven clubs and this is how we see the relegation zone looking at the end of the season with 8 games to go- next to the teams points you can see the current relegation odds and see if there is some value to be had.
14th West Ham 39 12.00
15th Everton 37 3.00
16th Bournemouth 36 3.25
17th Leeds 35 4.33
18th N. Forest 35 1.44
19th Leicester 33 1.72
20th Southampton 29 1.10
Unlucky for Nottingham Forest, it's possible they could end up going down with the same points as Leeds (35) because of their goal difference. As it stands with 8 games remaining Forest have a negative goal difference to Leeds of 15, and that doesn't seem very likely to be caught up in the remaining games. If our prediction is correct then Leicester look the best value to back at 1.72 to be relegated although it only take Leeds to drop one point to possibly be relegated instead of them and they look like excellent value at 4.33
There will, as ever, be plenty of twists and turns and who knows who will be relegated in the end, what looks a sure fire bet is that we won't know until the last weekend of the season.
© Copyright topfootballtipster.com 2019
