Premier League report card - One year on

Is Pulis on borrowed time at the Hawthorns?

16th (-5): West Bromwich Albion

Wins: 2 (-1) | Draws: 4 (=) | Losses: 5 (+1) | GD: -5 (-2) | Points: 10 (-3)

If you’d asked any Baggies fan before the beginning of the season whether they thought they’d be above or below the other Albion (Brighton) in the league table come the International break in November, I’ll take an educated guess and say at least 95% would have put them above the newly promoted side.

Naturally, in the eyes of the Hawthorns faithful, that is not good enough and there has been the odd ‘Pulis Out’ chant in recent weeks. It is a catch 22 situation, if I’ve ever I’ve seen one, because everyone knows Pulis doesn’t get relegated, so they won’t go down, but they don’t really seem to be up to much else, so they do they roll the dice? We will see.

15th (-8): Everton

Wins: 3 (-2) | Draws: 2 (-1) | Losses: 6 (+3) | GD: -12 (-14) | Points: 11 (-7)

Oh dear, what a difference a year makes. This time last year they were within touching distance of a Champions League place, this time, they’re in touching distance of the Championship and for a club that spent over £140 million, they are most definitely at the wrong end of the table.

So, where has it all gone wrong? The biggest area is around goals and a certain Romelu Lukaku holds a lot of the difference, but it was Koeman’s failure to land a proven striker that ultimately cost him his job, whoever comes in will have to rectify that in January. They’ll have too much, I feel, to go down, but then again, a lot of clubs before them have said they very same.

14th (-2): Stoke City

Wins: 3 (=) | Draws: 3 (-1) | Losses: 5 (+1) | GD: -9 (-4) | Points: 12 (-1)

Mark Hughes

This time last year, Mark Hughes’ job was one that was brought up quite frequently regarding the sack race and if you ask any Stoke fan, they won’t be happy with where they are this time around, either.

Not an awful lot happening at Stoke to get the pulses racing which is surprising when you consider they have someone like Shaqiri in their team and worryingly they’re dropping points at home, having only won 2 out of 6. I’ll place Stoke in the same bracket as Southampton despite the fact they’re a few places behind them. Need to improve.

13th (-3): Southampton

Wins: 3 (=) | Draws: 4 (=) | Losses: 4 (=) | GD: -2 (-2) | Points: 13 (=)

More of the same is the best reflection of Southampton’s positioning in the table. Yes, they’re in the bottom half. However, that’s due to the teams around them having more points than them, as opposed to anything that they’ve done differently.

They would have been disappointed to have lost at home to Burnley last time out, a win there would have meant they were in seventh as opposed to thirteenth. For me, the Saints really have hit no man’s land because there’s no danger of them getting dragged into a relegation dogfight. But there’s not much hope of them challenging for the top six, either. It will be interesting to see what happens to the rest of the season.