Stoke City

[boundngag]

The current plight of Stoke City shows that, imho, if Arsenal under Wenger played like Arsenal under George Graham (without the success), he may well have been sacked by now. When initially promoted, the Britannia Stadium was like a fortress, it was an intimidating place for other teams to visit and the amount of points they gained at home guaranteed them Premier League survival.

This season, their fans haven't seemed to get behind them so much as they were expecting Tony Pulis to at least attempt to start playing a more attractive brand of football. This didn't happen, the fans became disillusioned with the team, the Britannia Stadium stopped being such an intimidating place for rival teams to play and their form plummeted. They have the worst form in the league this calendar year and with Sunderland, Aston Villa, Wigan, QPR and potentially Reading all improving, are in real danger of going down. Realistically, the survival points target could reach the 40 points area and Stoke would be unlikely to reach that on current form.

[John]

Stoke were being mooted for potential Eurpoean places after the initial success. Oh how the "mighty" have fallen. Saying that, Villa have been skirting with relegation spots lately though their recent win against Stoke has lifted them out of the bottom three, though they still hover a precarious 3 point clear with games away to Man Utd and home to Chelsea to come.

They would my "shock" team of the season should they go down

[boundngag]

Do you know what, John? This may sound incredibly stupid, but my shock team of the season would be QPR. All that money spent and they somehow got worse! What has gone on in that dressing room?!

The Stoke sort of scenario seems to be quite common. So you remember several seasons ago, Charlton were promoted, stayed up, then seen to be the model club. Since then they capitulated, plummeted to League two and now are improving again. I think a similar thing happened to Bolton, Ipswich, Derby and Leicester. Some teams get promoted, stay up a few seasons, then somehow screw it up, get relegated and don't return. The Championship appears to be so close and difficult to get out of. Imho, I think it's because the quality difference between the Championship and the Premier League isn't as great as people make out, so teams are shocked when they get relegated (like every relegated Premier League team has been this season). The Blue Square Premier League appears to have gone the same way, becoming a lot more competitive. It's a good job the Gills are on the up at the moment!

[John]

Good call on QPR. They have thrown a wheelbarrow full of money at the club. I can't believe Chris Samba is a £100k a week player for one thing. It seems even Good old 'Arry can't save them.

It did make me smile though when he moaned about the wages the mercenary players were on saying the owner had had "his pants pulled down.." without mentioning his own mercenary nature and the wages he was on

[boundngag]

It's especially rich given Redknapp's reputation. I know what I think about that...

Aston Villa have just beaten Sunderland 6-1! Now Sunderland and Newcastle are at risk of relegation! That's two big losses they have both had now and they could have a terrible effect on moral at a crucial stage! I don't think anyone with less than 40 points can be counted as safe. It's certainly going to be interesting!