Premier League survival never so vital

Why the struggle for survival is even more desperate than usual

AT THE start of every season, three or four clubs hope they will compete for the Premier League title. A handful more have an eye on the European places. The rest? They just want to stay in the division.

This is the way of the Premier League, a club where membership is everything. As one executive said midway through the break in play: ‘Forget the cups and forget Europe. If you offered us a place in the Premier League for the next 10 years and absolutely nothing else, we would bite your hand off.’

So this is where we are at as the 28th season of the Premier League resumes this week. This is the beast that has been created in the years since its inception.

Relegation has long been viewed as a disaster for all but the most thrifty of top-flight clubs. But this time — with a season playing in the Championship in front of no fans to look forward to — it is a quite terrifying prospect.

Last month, Aston Villa CEO Christian Purslow described a return to the Championship next season as a ‘£200million catastrophe’. This wasn’t a hyberbolic statement and such fear drove some of the clubs threatened with the drop — Villa, Watford, Brighton and West Ham, in particular — to hope that the season would not restart or, at the very least, would conclude without relegation.

Now that those arguments have been lost, it is down to the players once more. One imagines what effect the last three months have had on those who hold their clubs’ future in their hands.

One theory in manager circles is that some clubs have not driven their players as intensely as others during the lockdown, largely because they suspected there would be no resumption. So while just about every team will be undercooked when play begins again this week, it is possible that some will be breathing just a little harder than others.

And this at a time when there is no margin for error. A team who start this nine-game mini-season slowly could be cut adrift by the time they find their stride.

Brighton, for example, face Arsenal, Leicester, Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City in their first 22 days.

If Graham Potter doesn’t have his players right from the off, they could be sunk before they know it. Brighton were one of the clubs that spoke most vociferously against plans to play matches at neutral venues. Chief executive Paul Barber was eloquent and persuasive on the matter and it is right that clubs are to be given the opportunity at least to show that games can be staged safely and securely at all 20 Premier League stadiums.

What impact that has on performances remains to be seen. A month into the return of the Bundesliga and figures show that the team playing at home are only half as likely to win as they were back in the days when supporters were present.

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder is glad not to have relegation to worry about, but he did make an interesting point during a conversation on Sunday, one that will apply to the teams in the bottom positions.

‘I’ve been watching the Bundesliga and the lack of tempo in the games has been obvious,’ Wilder said. ‘My players cannot afford to let that happen to them.

‘So if they can’t feed off an atmosphere and a crowd to give them that tempo, then we are going to have to find it from somewhere else ourselves.’

Burnley manager Sean Dyche has been equally categorical about the effect empty stadiums will have on the football we are about to see. Again, he made the point that it is likely to have an impact on some of the less technically able teams.

‘If we are not careful, games will feel a little like pre-season friendlies,’ Dyche told Sportsmail two weeks ago.

‘And we can’t have that, so it’s up to the players to find something from somewhere to make games real, as it were.

‘And I think players will do that. They are more resourceful and adaptable than you may think.’

PLAYERS will need to be more than resourceful over the coming weeks. They will need to be committed and convinced of their health and safety.

Relegation battles are usually played out in players’ heads the longer the season goes on and it is hard to escape the feeling that this will be an increasingly important factor this time round.

Nigel Pearson’s work since taking over at Watford in December has been impressive. Seemingly cut adrift when he arrived, they are fourth from bottom as we prepare to restart.

But his public message during the lockdown was bold, telling the

Times last month that football must make sure nobody dies on the field. At a time when club captain Troy Deeney was expressing reservations about returning to training, Pearson’s rhetoric was interesting and only his players will know whether their manager’s apparent fears have influenced their own thoughts. Pearson must hope not.

At West Ham — far from safe ahead of their first game back at home to Wolves on Saturday — messages have been more mixed.

Manager David Moyes could not have been more positive and has always sounded keen to play. Vice-chair Karren Brady, on the other hand, regularly used her newspaper column to speak of the many obstacles she believed stood between the game and its safe return to action.

Self-interest has been at work and this is understandable. As Purslow said in that interview last month, his job is to represent the interests of Aston Villa. If that meant hoping for a curtailed season or abandoned relegation in order to keep his club in the Premier League, so be it.

On the field, it is easy to fear for Dean Smith and his Villa team as they prepare to reopen proceedings at home to Sheffield United tomorrow evening.

They have spent big but not overly well since last season’s promotion and still look light on goals. The return to fitness of midfielder John McGinn may be their greatest hope.

If we presume Daniel Farke’s rather hapless Norwich have already gone, then five teams will seek to avoid the other two relegation places.

Smith was right yesterday to criticise the introduction of a five-substitute rule, a wholly unnecessary move that will only benefit the clubs with greater strength in depth.

But these are not the things that will ultimately make the difference. In the end, the brave will stay up and the meek will not.

That is one thing that even this upside-down world has not managed to change.