West Ham, Birmingham and Blackpool all struggled with life in the Premier League last season, woeful defending and inconsistent performances for much of the season, saw all three clubs relegated to the Championship. Following an interesting summer (to say the least) for these clubs, legal problems with the clubs owners as is the case with Birmingham, managers coming and going, players leaving to join Premier League teams, all this and the resumption of the npower Championship rapidly approaching. Out of these relegated teams which have the best chance of gaining immediate promotion back to the top flight and by what means will they achieve this goal, play-offs or automatic promotion?
Two weeks isn’t a long time, till the season gets under way in what is seen as one of the most competitive leagues in Europe. Upwards of twelve clubs beginning the season in the Championship will be looking to make an assault on promotion, but which out of our relegated trio have managed to steady the ship and get the right manager in charge and refocus the players on making the push needed to get out of what in recent season has become a black hole for relegated teams? Since 2005 relegated teams that have managed to make the leap back to the Premiership and at the first attempt, stands at five.
Last season all three of the relegated teams from the 2009/10 Premier League season failed to even make the play-offs, Burnley placing best of these teams in eighth position.
Blackpool, everyone’s second favourite team of last season, Ian Holloway lead the seasiders on a white knuckle ride that turned sceptics into believers. Unfortunately naive defending in winning positions derailed their attempts at survival. Charlie Adam has completed his move to Liverpool, with more players expected to follow Adam back to the Premier League. Holloway has moved quickly to fill the vacant positions by player departures, with Mame Biram Diouf coming on a season long loan from Manchester United along with the arrival of Barry Ferguson from Birmingham, nothing has been finalised yet regarding the deals but it is a signal of intent from Holloway.
Blackpool have lost players, but the manager has the money to reinvest in the squad to mount a real challenge, and considering the attacking exciting football they produced last season it should prove too much for the majority of the division. They gained promotion to the Premiership in 2009/10 through the play-offs and if they play to their strengths I expect at least a play-off berth again for Blackpool.
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How are Birmingham, Blackpool and West Ham likely to fare in the Championship next season???
Don’t you mean: A paragraph summing up the summer transfer activity of Birmingham, Blackpool and West Ham.
Thanks for wasting 2 minutes of my life with this pointless report that any fan reading will already be well aware of. Maybe a review of the playing styles, fitness levels, biggest threats, injury concenrs etc etc would have been much more relevent. ~
I for one will never read a report on ‘thisisfootball’ ever again.
This fool who posted the comment above may as well throw his laptop out the window and stop wasting your breath trying to pick holes in an article that was published to open a debate and question peoples views,if you want fact’s and statistic’s then the sky sports website is full of them.