Who are the worst teams in the Premier League?

Kate Mason (0:01)

The Athletic FC.

Hello, and welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast with me, Kate Mason. It is time for our Tactical Preview Show where the Athletic's finest minds put the latest in tactics under the microscope. Yes, here they are, the Athletic's finest minds. It's former England goalkeeper, Rob Green.

Rob Green (0:23)

Good morning.

Kate Mason (0:24)

And the Athletic's tactics writer, Liam Tharme.

Liam Tharme (0:26)

Hello, morning.

Kate Mason (0:27)

Hello. I hope you've got those minds up and running because we are a quarter of the way to the Premier League season. And ahead of our last match week before the winter international break, you'll never sing that, we thought we'd get ahead of the relegation battle.

Liam, any surprise relegation candidates for you this year?

Liam Tharme (0:44)

Well, it's interesting that the current bottom three are all, I guess, more established Premier League teams, and they're not the newly promoted teams. So we've had a bit of a swing in recent years where we had a couple of seasons of all three promoted teams going down. We've had it more recently with promoted teams surviving and kind of this interesting. I think it's quite tactically rooted as well, the battle of when you come up, what way should you play? Should you try and be still expansive? If that was you in the championship, should you go a bit more defensive and a bit more physical? And the old blueprint of this is how you stay up and be hard to beat. So I don't know if this will be the same way come the end of the season, but I think there's definitely some of the promoted teams that are in a good place to actually compete compared to previous years.

Kate Mason (1:20)

Yeah, good to see. You've been looking at the odds, Rob.

Rob Green (1:24)

Yeah, that oddness about this season, about the odds, is related in how the league stands at the minute, converse to what tradition suggests. And you're looking at the current favourites to get relegated a whole.

Who you're saying are doing great. Mid-table sat there.

Kate Mason (1:44)

Feels harsh.

Rob Green (1:45)

It feels harsh. Added to the weirdness of the second favourites, Manchester City.

Kate Mason (1:50)

That's quite funny.

Rob Green (1:51)

Which is completely non-football related in terms of why they will get relegated. And then you're looking at Coventy, Crystal Palace, Sunderland, and you keep going all the way to 12th. There is Manchester United, who currently sit just out of the relegation zone on goal difference. So it's an odd scenario where we got, I think, thrown into the mix as well. Oliver Glasner, Saj, new managers at clubs where you're saying they should be probably doing better and having the bedding in time and in its areas where when is their season going to kick in? When are they going to start? If it does, and who pulls that trigger first to get that reaction? Which one works?

Whilst there is some counter-tradition points, there's some traditional sort of things around the corner, you feel?

Kate Mason (2:45)

Manchester United fans will be comforted, I think, by those odds. Only 12th favourite to get relegated.

Rob Green (2:50)

Well, yeah, you say that. I'm not sure. Is it that comforting at the minute?

Kate Mason (2:55)

Well, look, before we jump into the Premier League teams who are at risk of relegation this season, let's talk about one of the sides that made the drop last season, Rob's Old Horn, it's West Ham. You've just appointed one of your former teammates as Gaffer. So Scott Parker has come in for Nuno. Tell us, what do you make of the appointment? Have they gone a bit, have they gone early with this change?

Rob Green (3:18)

Well, you'd say initially on the face of it, yes.

But then you look at the end of last season, not even the end of last season.

Nuno was in for a long period of last season, I suppose, eight games. He came into charge of after eight games, sorry. So he had 30 games to get it right, and it fell away at the end of last season, and it's not been right. I don't think that realistically, there's a structure to the side, a way of playing, a real identity into how they were going to go about it. They have some standout players for that division, and the feeling was just put them out there, and some way they'll find a way. And so often, I mean, yes, they had this dramatic turnaround against Cardiff under Scott Parker, but that felt very Nuno-esque was, well, let's give the other team a lead, let's not really turn up for half a game, and then we go about it. So no great surprise that it's happened. I think Scott will come in, he'll speak to the team in a new way. Brilliant coming across in a really approachable manner to players. I think that's him as a person, manages to transcend barriers in that way, just as a genuinely likable person. So I think he'll immediately get a response in that way, and be able to communicate in a way that they understand, and he'll get them to do what he wants them to do in a really proficient manner. More like what we saw at Burnley, but I feel with better quality attacking players that they have at West Ham.