Yay! Everyone is saved!!! NOT!!!!!

Market rallied. Of course, I don't have any longs in it. Not that it mattered since adding more debt seems to be the way the world goes. Yea, I'm paying taxes for people who double spend and triple spend the same tax dollar they paid 5-10 years ago. But who cares? Economy is good and market is happy!

Well, I'm not going to use that as my reason to be happy. It's not right. What is right though is that Everton won! To spoil the fun, Liverpool also won...But let live...They are playing toothless Sunderland...On the bright side, Harry won! Against Chelsea no less! I hope they become the second team to beat the drop after being bottom on Christmas. Previously, West Brom is the only team to survive the cut after being stranded at the bottom of the table on Christmas. Read up West Brom and "The Great Escape".

Talk about relegation, I was reading some nonsense on how Norwich, my friend's hometown team, is relegation fodder. Well, I'm not that confident on who is going for the drop but if you assume that teams have 19 matches left, or half the season, the bottom 5 teams can't really (although quite possibly if a turn for the worse happens) catch up with Norwich. Here's my reason why its unlikely:

1. TOP teams can't afford to lose to BOTTOM teams, so chances bottom teams even get a point against European Level teams (that's usually TOP 7), zilch...so that leaves maybe 12 games.
2. Now, there are more than 7 teams challenging for TOP 7, so let's add 3 more teams, which happens to be Stoke and notice the gap between Stoke and West Ham, exactly 1 game difference! Now that's more like 9 games left.
3. There is a reason why it's always noted as a "Relegation Dogfight"...Teams can't afford to lose...and teams between 11-15 tends to be teams that doesn't win the games they are expected to win, but they don't suck that bad...So expect a lot of draws...That's maybe worth 5-7 draws at least...
4. Assuming that the bottom teams can actually beat a few higher ranked opponents, say 4 wins and 5 draws, rather than 7 draws and 2 wins...that's like 17 points...maybe 20 MAX...And for Southampton...thats 38 points MAX for the season...1 game already spent...though well spent in drawing Arsenal...And Norwich is...what...4 wins away from safety?
5. As a rule of thumb, I always gauge potential points as equal to number of games for relegation fights...because they lose (or draw) so often...and what's left is perhaps a rate of 3 points every 3 games, and even that is sometimes considered good...
6. In West Brom's case, they got 23 out of 18 games...slightly better than my point per game average theory, and they escaped! You can barely scratch top 10 with 46 points from 36 matches...Lowest scoring champions has 80 from 30 games with the rest well above 85...That's 2.25 points per game...So what's left for scrappers?

All in all, soccer experts...do some math and stop grouping Norwich in the same tier as the bottom 5...Well, unless they lose another 5-6 games like Newcastle...Without knowing what happens in the transfer market in January, I would say the relegation fight starts from Sunderland downwards...And only including Sunderland because they are so horrible in offence. The rest of the relegation zone is horrible in defence...Except Villa which seems inept in both!