'Doing a Reading'

[Mr Angry]

Sunderland will be top 10 next season; they have sorted themselves out off the pitch, and have a hungry young manager with fierce winning mentality on it.

Birmingham will be bottom 5, but probably survive; Bruce is no mug and they will continue to spend money.

Derby, especially if the whole Billy Davies will he stay/won't he stay saga drags on, could be in bother; a good start is vital for them.

Barnes may well leave in the Jan window if they look relegation candidates.

[SpaceCruiser]

Personally, I would imagine

Sunderland pushing for UEFA Cup (if they get a good start)
Birmingham just above relegation
Derby in the relegation scrap

That sounds about right.

[Stranded]

Sunderland will be top 10 next season; they have sorted themselves out off the pitch, and have a hungry young manager with fierce winning mentality on it.

Birmingham will be bottom 5, but probably survive; Bruce is no mug and they will continue to spend money.

Derby, especially if the whole Billy Davies will he stay/won't he stay saga drags on, could be in bother; a good start is vital for them.

Barnes may well leave in the Jan window if they look relegation candidates.

Can't disagree with any of that really. Only thing would be if Sunderland start badly and have very little points after six or so games. This will transfer itself to the stands after the last two seasons in the Prem and playing at home could become very difficult for them.

[When Hicks went up...]

Sunderland will be top 10 next season; they have sorted themselves out off the pitch, and have a hungry young manager with fierce winning mentality on it.

Birmingham will be bottom 5, but probably survive; Bruce is no mug and they will continue to spend money.

Derby, especially if the whole Billy Davies will he stay/won't he stay saga drags on, could be in bother; a good start is vital for them.

Barnes may well leave in the Jan window if they look relegation candidates.

Can't disagree with any of that really. Only thing would be if Sunderland start badly and have very little points after six or so games. This will transfer itself to the stands after the last two seasons in the Prem and playing at home could become very difficult for them.

I agree. I think both Sunderland and Birmingham will stay up, but only due to the calibre of signings they are likely to be able to make over the summer. As it stands, I dont think any of the squads of the promoted clubs are good enough.

Either way, I predict some decent banter when the Mackems come to town -

"88 points, you're having a laugh"

"If you cant win it properly, shut your mouth..."

"We were unbeatable, we were unbeatable..."

[SpaceCruiser]

This is slightly interesting..........

http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/sund ... _page.html

[fallen angel]

This is slightly interesting..........

http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/sund ... _page.html

I used to watch sunderland a lot in the 70/80's(Wife being from there)I used to dream that we could be like them,now they want to be like us.a funny old game football

[knights_1990]

i can see derby following in our footsteps

[Franchise FC]

i can see derby following in our footsteps

Did you miss out the apostrophe and the t.

I don't see a great deal of similarilty between Derby and Reading.

Reading
Mainly young side
Very quick on the break
Finished the promotion season with a bang

Derby
Significant number of older players
Pace is a big problem
Finished the regular season with a bit of a whimper

[lozz2601]

Is this the same Derby that said when they got relegated from the prem and we got promoted to div 1, "You know you've been relegated when you play teams like Reading." this was before the opening game of the season. They did beat us 3-0 but hated John Gregory ever since!

You know when the premiership should only have 19 teams playing when teams like Derby win via the playoffs.

I remember that - in the programme.
Something like "The reality of relegation finally dawns when you look at the fixture list and see the first game is Reading".
Am considering emailing club for home fixture to see if they can put a retaliation somewhere....