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2026/27 Relegation Battle

Chewit

Chewit

Striker
Contributor
Who do you predict will form the bottom 3

Can we take comfort from the following
1. The 3 promoted teams are highly unlikely to reach our level
2. Bournemouth are losing Andoni Iraola and will be stretched in Europe
3. Palace are losing Oliver Glasner
4. Fulham might lose Marco Silva
5. Brighton will be stretched in Europe
6. Brentford would be stretched in Europe
7. Mags have to sell to buy

On the down side
1. Forest will be stronger without Europe
2. Mags will be stronger without Europe
3. Palace will be stronger without Europe
4. Either West Ham or Spurs will be stronger
5. Other teams transfer dealings

If we don’t qualify for Europe and didn’t sell any players but added a couple of world beaters I think we are nailed on for top 8.

The variables are crazy ….. but I would argue Europe would come to early for us unless we kept all our players and bought in a boatload of more quality to give us depth

You can’t look beyond the 3 clubs coming up to go straight down.

Of the current prem clubs however I think it’s very hard to predict who will be down there in the battle but I will go Palace, Brentford and Bournemouth
 

Just to add Palace and Forest may be in Europe next season as both are still in the semis.

I know it’s just an interesting maybe/what if thread but we have shown making predictions is nigh on impossible about this league. The easiest prediction is the 3 who came up but it all depends on what route they take.

Coventry will need to spend money, they will probably get to keep the keeper on loan unless Brighton sell Verbruggen or Steele. Ese will be difficult as Palace probably need cost especially if they get back into Europe and the South Korean will most likely be playing in the championship with Spurs. That’s 2 midfielders they need plus improvements all whilst the owner said they aren’t going to do a Sunderland.

Ipswich and Southampton probably have the best squads to come up with but again they’d need to improve whereas the likes of Millwall would need serious investment. I can’t really see any team who survives doing a Wolves this season either which helps the promoted teams massively.
 
Worry about next season next season but the teams coming up won’t have the financial backing to make enough quality in. I think it will be extremely hard for any them to emulate what we and Leeds have done
 
Depending who comes up, I think either Ipswich or Southampton (probably more likely Southampton) could “do a Leeds” and stay up.

Coventry’s owner criticised our approach to promotion which suggests they won’t be investing so they’ll struggle.

I think someone we don’t expect will be sucked into the battle
 
Who knows. Maybes we'll do shit and struggle. Maybes we'll kick on (again) and soar even higher. Maybes we'll just plod along in mid-table, being inconsistent and relatively boring?

No point stressing about it now, just enjoy the run-in and see what happens.
 
We would never had said what we what we ended up doing in the transfer market prior to us going up so i wouldn't try and predict what Coventry + 2 will or won't do in the transfer market. Nether would I count on our performances continuing in a linear straight line of progression. Whilst i don't think it is likely, we could easily regress next season and have a season of struggle. It's important fans don't think that next season will automatically be better than this one. Our first target again needs to be to get to 40 points. Hopefully this happens early and we can then kick on. But to do it, we need the fans bang behind the team from the minute go and need the home atmosphere to be as good as its been this season.
 
One or more of the promoted sides will go down, apart from that dunno.

Could be us, could be Leeds. Could be any two from at least a dozen sides.
Those same sides could be pushing for a European place mind.
 
None of the 3 promoted teams (whoever they may end up being) have squads worthy of challenging in the league as it stands. They will be all worse at the point of promotion than us, Leeds and Burnley were. They’ll all have to spend big and do it well, and if they don’t do that they are in trouble.
 
I think the previous two season where all the promoted teams went straight back down resulted in a few Prem teams taking their eye off the ball this year which us and Leeds have benefited from.
I this year there will be a lot more spending as a result of how close Spurs/West Ham & Forrest have got to the drop on top of Wolves also going down.
It's a wake up call to all the established clubs that anyone can go down and a lot of teams are going to strengthen that bit more as a result.
 
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It never pans out how you expect. We just have to make sure we go into the season the best prepared we can be and take it from there. Everyone thought we were going down, we cant assume anything.
 
Depending on what happens with us, we could be in a similar position to Brentford.

Manager could be poached and we could lose some of our best players, just got to wait and see.
 
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