Who's getting relegated from the Premier League?

A relegation race that was assumed to be done and dusted months ago has suddenly gotten very interesting, with West Ham United improving as quickly as Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur decline. Leeds United should be safe, but at just 6 points clear, we’ll include this in the conversation as well.

Most of the debate around who’s going down is based more on feelings than objective analysis, which I think is quite fair given the current circumstances. Neither humanity nor AI has yet to develop an algorithm to measure the insanity of the people who run Spurs and Forest. If we had xVibes, they’d probably tell us that those teams are trending downwards.

But I think that predicting things based on vibes is still ever so slightly edged out by the quality of shots that teams take and concede. So let’s take a look at how each of these teams have performed over the past 10 games, what their upcoming schedules look like, and how oddsmakers see their chances of staying up.

Leeds United

Going through a run of fixtures that includes Chelsea, Aston Villa and Manchester City will not have done wonders for Leeds’ stats, but they’re pretty clearly heading in the wrong direction. Even with yesterday’s rather unlucky loss to Sunderland, in which they had higher xG than their opponents, it’s been a rough month.

Leeds’ attacking numbers have remained about league average through their recent run of fixtures, but their defensive stats have dropped off quite a bit. They’re still pressing pretty aggressively and preventing counter-attacking shots by doing it, but they don’t win the ball back or defend well after that first pressing phase, when they’ve settled back into shape.

Goalkeeper Karl Darlow has been an above-average shot stopper since taking back over from the struggling Lucas Perri, so their recent results could have easily been even worse. There’s a lot for Leeds fans to be concerned about. But as you’ll see below, their run-in should be easy enough to save them, combined with the 6-point advantage they already have over West Ham.

Tottenham Hotspur

I’m not even sure what to say about these jokers anymore. Obviously these numbers are exacerbated by their most recent match coming against Arsenal, who might clean their clocks in a good year, but YIKES.

Spurs actually do create quite a bit off high pressing and set pieces. Problem is, they’re not good enough at other aspects of football to be able to high press a lot or win a lot of set pieces.

I’m not sure how a team with two great center backs that they could easily sell for £50m+ and a defensive midfielder who is only in the side because of how good he is at tackling can be this poor defensively, but Spurs manage to pull it off. Astonishing.

New manager Igor Tudor has been trying to install a 3-4-3 system with that aforementioned midfielder, Joao Palhinha, as a member of the back three. He’s got Conor Gallagher playing wingback. Spurs are in absolute hell and not getting better. They just have to hope one of the two teams below them is worse.

Nottingham Forest

Well this isn’t good. At least they have a chance to turn it around on Wednesday as they [checks notes] go away to Manchester City. Oof.

An attack previously carried by Chris Wood does not seem to have the slightest clue of what to do without him. They’ve loaned in 6’7” header machine Lorenzo Lucca, and it has not resulted in any kind of set piece threat. Igor Jesus hasn’t done much up top, and Taiwo Awoniyi is just now coming back to fitness. They really need any one of those 3 guys to start giving them average striker play.

The talent on the pitch suggests that Forest is too good for this. Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi, and Omari Hutchinson are talented attackers. Elliot Anderson is one of the best midfielders in the league. But the numbers are catastrophically bad, and their run-in isn’t easy.

West Ham United

The Hammers hilariously won the xG in their 5-2 loss to Liverpool, which was part of a decent trend for their numbers overall. West Ham are playing better football than Spurs and Forest at the moment, for real, not just on vibes.

Both their defending and attacking xG numbers are dead on league average for the last 10 matches. If they keep playing like that, they’ll probably finish on more points than one of Spurs or Forest. But they also face the hardest run-in of any of the 4 teams in this relegation battle, and by a pretty significant margin too.

Remaining fixtures

This will be a lovely sight if you’re a Leeds fan, and it’s why I think they have nothing to worry about. Having both the most points and the easiest remaining fixtures of all these teams should make them a virtual lock to stay up.

Spurs’ fixtures are also about to get much easier after a very difficult run. If they avoid defeat against Palace on Thursday, it should shift the xVibes just enough to make them extremely strong favorites to stay up.

Forest have to face some of the luckiest teams in the league so far this year, while West Ham’s opponents are mostly just good.

West Ham are at home on the final day vs. a Leeds team that will probably be confirmed safe, and with nothing more to play for by then.

Forest are at home to a good Bournemouth side that might still be in a battle to grab a European place. Forest are also still in Europa League, and got a pretty favorable draw vs. Midtjylland, so it wouldn’t be shocking to see them have to play another round in that competition. West Ham are still in the FA Cup, and host Brentford this weekend.

Gambling… err… “prediction” markets

Most respectable books are not taking bets on Premier League relegation futures at the moment. Pinnacle only has a yes/no on West Ham’s relegation, and bet105 doesn’t have anything right now. But the retail books are always happy to take your money, so here are the prices you can get today on one of those. I don’t care to specify which one.

Prices aren’t much different on the “prediction markets,” though Kalshi has a slightly better price for West Ham going down than Polymarket, or the traditional books. Polymarket has much better prices for Tottenham and Leeds going down than Kalshi or the traditional books.

My thoughts after going through this exercise is that the odds most places for West Ham are a touch too high, and Forest a touch too low. I don’t think there’s any kind of crazy market inefficiency or incorrect media narrative going on, but Forest vs. West Ham to go down feels like pretty close to a toss-up for me, with Tottenham at around 10% and Leeds 1% or less.

The Leeds prices on both the traditional books and prediction markets are way off for me. There’s so little to gain so please don’t actually bet your money on this, but Polymarket is almost selling £1 notes for 93p.

I put a tenner on Forest to go down because I am a degenerate loser. If you would like good gambling advice for smart people who are not degenerate losers, I recommend subscribing to Variance Betting.

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