John Helm: Escape route opening up for Shearer

May 6 2009 by Mel Booth, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

PREDICTING football results can be a hazardous occupation – except when it comes to the bottom five in the Premier League.

They lose every match!

I can hardly remember a win for West Brom, Middlesbrough, Newcastle United, Sunderland or Hull City this year.

It must be soul destroying for the long-suffering fans of that quintet.

And with the exception of the Tigers they’ve all been there before.

That’s the problem with the Premier League, and why supporters of Wolves, Birmingham City and whichever club gets the short straw of joining them on the way up from the Championship play-offs should be ordering anti-depressant pills now.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Newcastle actually play Middlesbrough next Monday I’d wager that the bottom five wouldn’t get another point between them.

Consider this. Newcastle (with and without Alan Shearer) have won once in 17 games, Boro have won two in 22.

Hull have had a single success since November – when they were boldly talking of a debut in Europe – Sunderland are in freefall, and West Brom have been a hopeless cause since the opening day of the season.

Believe it or not I think if Newcastle can beat Boro it will keep them up. What does that say about how bad it is!

Hull may get something out of the visit of Stoke to the KC Stadium, so I’m going for Sunderland to go down with their Teesside neighbours and Albion, who go up and down every year and will probably be back at the expense of Wolves in 12 months’ time.