12 Crystal Palace Pl 25 Pts 27 GD -11
With only six points separating the bottom nine, Palace are closer to 20th-placed Bournemouth than 11th-placed Aston Villa. Ominously, Patrick Vieira’s young side have developed downward momentum and have gone nine league games without victory. They are seeking their first win of 2023 and continue to miss last season’s Chelsea loanee midfielder Conor Gallagher. Vieira, ever sensible and intelligent, reacted to the concession of seven goals in two games against Tottenham and Chelsea at the turn of the year by swapping a high press for cagey, deep-sitting counterattacking tactics and the defence has tightened accordingly. Yet too many potentially key individuals, the inconsistent forward Eberechi Eze among them, are struggling for form and the goals have dried up for the top tier’s lowest transfer market spenders.
13 Wolves Pl 26 Pts 27 GD -16
Relegation fears led to the appointment of the former Spain and Real Madrid manager Julen Lopetegui in November after the dismal start presided over by Bruno Lage. Five wins since Christmas have transformed the Black Country landscape, with Lopetegui’s willingness to alternate between a back four and a back three mid-game proving the key to beating Tottenham last weekend. Nonetheless a goals-for record of 19 in 26 games highlights a big problem. Damningly, Friday marked a year since a Wolves centre-forward (Raúl Jiménez) scored a top-tier goal. Perhaps tellingly, Diego Costa has more red cards (one) than goals. Much hinges on whether Lopetegui can get the best out of his potentially gamechanging winger Adama Traoré.
14 Nottingham Forest Pl 25 Pts 26 GD -24
When, earlier this season, Forest looked doomed to an immediate return to the Championship, the board held their nerve and kept faith with their tactically astute manager, Steve Cooper. A club who, bewilderingly, have signed 30 players since last summer have been rewarded with distinct improvement but, despite some excellent home form, a certain fragility lingers. Although a growing injury list afflicting some key personnel, including the goalkeeper Dean Henderson, is hampering Cooper’s cause, the attacking threat offered by the exciting, and extremely gifted, Brennan Johnson and Morgan Gibbs-White bodes well. Cooper’s superb coaching and man-management should ultimately steer a team possessing a dangerous collective change of pace to safety, and it helps that in Jonjo Shelvey and Jack Colback he possesses two midfielders who know how to slow the tempo and frustrate opponents.
15 Leicester Pl 25 Pts 24 GD -7
Until recently the 2016 champions saw themselves as a top-six club but pride sometimes comes before a fall. Brendan Rodgers has not become a bad manager overnight but he has been hampered by the knee trouble recently afflicting his midfield playmaker James Maddison, not to mention a sense of instability provoked by the presence of seven players who will be out of contract in the summer. If the good news is that Maddison seems sufficiently fit to try to arrest a damaging run of three straight league defeats, most recently by relegation rivals Southampton, the bad news is that another of Rodgers’s high-calibre midfielders, Youri Tielemans, will be sidelined for some weeks. Small wonder Rodgers – who has won Scottish trebles with Celtic and the FA Cup at Leicester – says survival would rank among his “biggest achievements”. He has experience of escaping a relegation skirmish – with Watford in 2008-09.
16 West Ham Pl 25 Pts 23 GD -10
Should he stay or should he go? The debate regarding David Moyes’s suitability as the manager is as enduring, and intense, as ever but it is surely becoming too late for Rafael Benítez, or anyone else, to exert the desired impact. The only certainty is that Moyes’s £160m spend last summer has failed – spectacularly – to improve a side who had begun to regard themselves as European regulars. It would be somewhat ironic were West Ham to complete an unwanted double – relegation and winning the Europa Conference League. With Declan Rice enforcing midfield, that fate should be avoidable but increasing murmurs of dressing-room discontent suggest a squad including, among other talents, the gifted Lucas Paquetá, are tiring of their manager’s caution.
17 Leeds Pl 25 Pts 22 GD -11
Leeds must hope April is not the cruellest month after all. Its fixture list contains potentially season-defining home games against Forest, Palace and Leicester, plus a trip to Bournemouth. Relegation would place in jeopardy the club’s long-mooted takeover by the San Francisco-based 49er Enterprises but the early indications are that last month’s replacement of Jesse Marsch with Javi Gracia could prove inspired. The former Watford and Valencia manager is endeavouring to introduce much-needed width allied to an ability to control the tempo and sometimes slow games but he also seems to have had some of the luck which deserted Marsch. With the team’s two key strikers, Rodrigo and Patrick Bamford, emerging from the treatment room the goals may start flowing again – even if Gracia could need to switch to a two-man frontline.
18 Everton Pl 26 Pts 22 GD -19
If only Sean Dyche can get Dominic Calvert-Lewin fit and keep him healthy there may be a happy ending. The centre-forward is nearing a return after a season spent largely in the treatment room and could prove transformative for a team whose lack of decent central attacking cover partly cost Frank Lampard the manager’s job in January. The streetwise Dyche made a habit of winning relegation battles at Burnley and has England’s excellent Jordan Pickford in goal but would not be human if he were immune to the particular pressures of a club that has been part of the top tier since 1954 yet where managers as decorated as Carlo Ancelotti and Benítez have failed to be successful. With Everton due to swap Goodison Park for a £500m, 53,000-capacity stadium in 2024-25 the stakes could hardly be higher.
19 Southampton Pl 25 Pts 21 GD -21
The appointment of Rubén Sellés as manager until the end of the season has introduced a welcome air of stability – and sanity – after Nathan Jones’s disastrous tenure. If Southampton have good reason to regret sacking Ralph Hasenhüttl and replacing him with Jones in November at least Sellés has improved on the Welshman’s run of one win in eight league games courtesy of victories against Chelsea and Leicester either side of a defeat at Leeds. With a set-piece specialist as prolific as James Ward-Prowse, alongside the enormously talented 19-year-old Belgian Roméo Lavia in midfield, Southampton can never be underestimated. Even so their woeful home record – two league wins – needs to improve. And swiftly.
20 Bournemouth Pl 25 Pts 21 GD -27
Bournemouth were always expected to struggle after promotion but performances have often been much better than results suggest. That said Gary O’Neil – promoted from within after Scott Parker’s early season sacking – is under increasing pressure from fans after one win, and only six goals scored, in the past 10 league games. It does not help that the new American owner, Bill Foley, has pledged that relegation “is not going to happen” but, tellingly, Bournemouth’s players happily queue up to praise O’Neil’s shrewd gameplans and acumen at man-management. “We’re very with him,” says the defender Jordan Zemura. “And he’s very with us.”
