Whilst it may still be mathematically possible, it is pretty fair to say that we will be writing quite a bit next season about Norwich, Burnley and Watford, the 3 Premier League teams who are set to drop down to the Championship.
The question for these teams in the coming year is whether or not they are going to be able to bounce back up the following year. This is critical for teams who have fallen down the league, but which of these three look most likely to jump back up. Let's take a look.
Norwich
The odds may not be out yet but you can bet your bottom dollar that when an official site starts to share odds of promotion, Norwich will be at the top. Despite the Canaries being bottom of the league, and likely to stay there, this is a club that has a great history of launching itself back into the elite league. Norwich have bounced back twice before, and they will fancy their chances of doing it again.
Burnley
The Clarets took a shocking decision last week to get rid of manager Sean Dyche after 10 years at the club. This is first shocking because there are still 8 games left and a chance of survival, and also because of what the man has done for the club. Playing with a shoestring budget for a decade, Dyche turned Burnley into Premier League stalwarts. In reality, the club probably deserves to go down for the treatment of Dyche alone. The next manager will be critical to the Clar-ets chances of success next season, but in reality, they surely won't bounce back up. There are teams in the Championship with more money and more clout than Burnley, and they may be lucky to finish above mid-table in the Championship.
Watford hopes
We widely expect that there will be someone else at the helm for Watford come next season, given that Roy Hodgson is almost approaching his 1,235th year in management. Whilst it may look odd from the outside, the reality is that Watford's approach to hiring and firing managers had in fact had some level of success in recent years. This year of course things haven't quite gone their way, but they could still have a chance of getting back up next year. With players like Hernandez, Sarr and Dennis, assuming they stay at the club, there is nothing stopping the Hornets from once again bouncing back up to earn Premier League status.
There are never guarantees of coming back up of course but the danger of not doing so right away is very real for these teams. The football league is littered with ex-Premier League clubs who couldn't find their way back, which is exactly what Burnley, Watford and Norwich will be looking to avoid. Assuming these are the three to go down, who you would pick to come right back up next season?
