Going Down

Up and down the country and all over the footballing world we are deep within squeaky bum time and nowhere, given the money at stake is it squeakier than at the bottom of the Premier League. CollinsBeans takes you through the strengths (there are some) and weaknesses (there are more of them) of the five key strugglers.

NB. It’s important to note that we *just* excluded Aston Villa from this piece, if only for the sake that wishful thinking that they might take their dreary selves down might be the biggest obstacle from that happening.

Queens Park Rangers

Strengths

A couple of weeks ago QPR were being written off because of the toughness of their run in... rather than this be a weakness however, wins against the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal have shown that the men from Loftus Road are a team that raise their game for the bigger matches. It’s fair to say that Mark Hughes is yet to set the world on fire at QPR yet and many would question the career trajectory that the Welshman seems to be on but he possesses a squad that while unpredictable and undisciplined has an undeniable x factor to it.

Players like Adel Taarabt, Djibril Cisse, Bobby Zamora, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joey Barton can veer from genius to atrocious with little consistency but unlike their rivals QPR have a number of players that can be match winners on their day and produce that bit of magic that might be beyond the honest and committed pro in many of their fellow strugglers ranks. If these players can turn it on then they might have the star quality to stave off the drop.

Weaknesses

Conversely, the QPR squad, loaded with unpredictable and sometimes unstable minds is the reason for a lack of consistency. While they have players that can produce a rabbit from a hat they are also home to players that when things are going wrong they can go off the rails. Indiscipline and recklessness have led to a number of red cards and suspensions and the team can be as up and down as a yo yo. While they have players that can turn things on unlike the others around them, their lack of consistency and poor self control could be their undoing.

You also don’t quite know if Mark Hughes is really the man you want in the heat of a relegation struggle. It’s not that he doesn’t have the battling tendencies you need more you feel like he thinks he’s above it all, and really, how committed is he to the QPR cause?

Wigan Athletic

Strengths

Right now Wigan’s key strength seems to be coming into form at precisely the right moment and that in itself is the other advantage they have; they know just how to survive by the skin of their teeth at the last minute. In recent years Wigan have played a cat and mouse game with the relegation trap door and yet their multi-national squad that often resembles a bizarre United Nations travelling circus seems to know just what to do when their backs are against the wall.

Many have argued that Roberto Martinez’s expansive style has left them too open all season but perhaps that style of play where players are encouraged to take on their man, pass the ball and attack bodes well for that time of the season when teams need to go for the win. Put simply Wigan’s game plan doesn’t appear to let players hide on the pitch and that means when the pressure is on in the final run it that their players are able to cope with the stresses and strains of a relegation dogfight.

Weaknesses

While the clubs form has picked up considerably in recent matches the fact remains that all season long (and largely ever since Martinez has been in charge) that they remain highly brittle at the back. Despite possessing a goalkeeper that has been playing out of his skin all season in Ali El Habsi, the defence in front of him has often been as resilient as the proverbial paper bag in the rain; once they concede once the roof has been known to fall in. A greater robustness, that to be fair they seem to have belatedly found needs to be maintained.

Like so many of the clubs at the bottom the lack of a consistent goal scorer doesn’t help. If there’s one thing that Hugo Rodallega, Franco Di Santo and Connor Sammon scream it sure aint goals.

Bolton Wanderers

Strengths

Too good to go down? Not really, but when people were saying that what they really meant was too good a manager to go down, for just 12 months ago Owen Coyle was a name on many people’s lips for bigger and better things. Although he has seemed incapable at times in this season of arresting an alarming side you do not become a bad manager over night and the respect that he clearly has from his players and fans is a key asset. Key players like Stuart Holden and Lee, the Korean winger have been missing but the addition in January of the young Japanese winger Ryo Miyaichi on loan from Arsenal has been a master stroke adding some much needed creativity and verve into a decidedly workmanlike squad.

Weaknsesses

The inability to put a consistent run together. Just as it seemed that the club put in a good performance to quote un-quote ‘get their season on track’ they would chuck in a pitiful surrender that put them right back to square one, which at time of writing is in the relegation zone. The failure to build momentum and a regular two steps backwards for every one forward has really been hampering the side.

With Bolton it’s really hard to pinpoint where it’s all gone wrong this year but the sale of key players (Johan Elmander), injuries (Holden, Lee) and just a general lack of form that can probably be traced all the way back to their semi final hammering by Stoke in the FA Cup last April. Goals (as ever for struggling teams) have been a big issue with the venerable Kevin Davies now clearly on the wane and David N’Gog living up to his less than stellar reputation by contributing very little. Ivan Klasnic is a great finisher if given the chance but has been in and out of the team all season.

Blackburn Rovers

Strengths

If we’d have been writing this a few weeks ago this would have read form and goals. Over all the other clubs at the bottom Rovers seemed to be the club timing a run of results to perfection, coming out of the relegation zone at just the right time. Unlike all their other foes at the bottom they were also the club that appeared to have goal scorers, with the prolific Yakubu and explosive Junior Hoilett up top. Fast forward to now though and five successive defeats and injuries to their strikers means Blackburn seem as screwed as the rest...

Their main strength all season, for all the fans hating the manager and often poisonous atmosphere surrounding the club, the squad’s togetherness and morale has never been in question. Even if Steve Kean is the most unpopular manager (or indeed man) in the world of football his players are seemingly yet to cotton onto this and still seem resolutely committed to the cause, even if that does start to resemble an army of World War One Tommy’s going over the top for Field Marshall Haig.

Weaknesses

When the fans at one point were hoping that you would lose just so they could get rid of a manager they despise, you know this were going badly, and despite an upturn in form and the sheer belligerent nature of keeping faith with the man in the dugout, you have to think that the conditions the club have been operating in do not help and that there is still a deep sense of resentment and anger towards the man that picks the team and the fried poultry barons that pay his wages.

The squad is a poor one, with the majority of the players signed (with some notable exceptions like Scott Dann and the afore mentioned Yakubu) being unknown and rather random (not to mention cheap) foreign imports. Kean has some good young home grown players at his disposal but the heat of a battle for survival is not always the best place for them to build their footballing education. While their strength of character is what has kept them together thus far, recent setbacks just when they looked like they were in the process of saving their season will have to seriously hit their morale.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Strengths

Um, not may really...although you do have to ask, how has it come to this? On paper (a much over used term in football I must say) it did look like over the last few years a steady building process was going on, gradually adding Premier League quality (Doyle, O’Hara etc.) to the rather lower league journeyman and untried youngster looking squad that had got them into the top flight. Despite this however, Wolves haven’t ever been able to move things on and consolidate (say in the way that Stoke and West Brom have done in recent years) progressing forward from relegation battles to a comfortable mid table slot.

I know this is meant to be strengths, but really, relegation looks a certainty now so I will just use this time to say that Wayne Hennessy has been in excellent form in goal this season (he’s had to be) and personally made me re-evaluate, as I previously thought he was flaky and overrated. Stephen Fletcher has done well up front and is a fine finisher who will surely have no problem finding a new home come May.

Weaknesses

Where to start really, although a good place is surely in the dugout. Terry Connor seems a very decent chap who was thrown into a vicious war at the bottom of the table armed with little more than a water pistol. It’s hard to pin a lot of blame on his shoulders but he patently the wrong choice at the time and his appointment smacked of a Steve Wigley/Stuart Gray/Chris Hutchings situation i.e. good coach gets promoted way, way above their station.

The fundamental weaknesses have been at the very top though with a poorly handled sacking of Mick McCarthy leading to a terrible recruitment process. McCarthy might have been struggling but to sack him with no replacement lined up was baffling, and even then, when your main targets were Steve Bruce and Alan Curbishley its clear there isn’t much innovation or dynamism going on within the board room at Molineux.

On the pitch, most Wolves fans seem to point to deficiencies at the back as a key reason behind this seasons failing, with players like Christophe Berra and Richard Stearman out of their depth at the highest level. Elsewhere expensive signings like Jamie O’Hara and Roger Johnson have been massive flops, with the decision to make the unpopular Johnson who has a far too high sense of his own ability causing a clear disharmony in a squad where the togetherness factor was one of their key attributes. Not much else to say, but it’s a real shame to see their recent seasons hard work flushed away so poorly.