5 Premier League teams doing worse than expected
Living up to expectations is never an easy task. That’s one of the most common problems people encounter in their daily life and things are not very different in football either.
Before the start of each season, the fans will set the expectations from their favourite teams and in most cases, they set the bar really high. You can’t blame them, after all, which fan wouldn't want their favourite team to do well?
However, the difficult part is living up to those expectations and every season, few teams are destined to fail at it. Some might fail to mount a title challenge that was expected of them, other might fail to clinch qualification for European football and then there are also the ones that face relegation.
This season hasn’t been any different as many Premier League clubs have not performed the way their fans would have hoped and these five clubs are easily the ones that are doing much worse than expected.
Southampton
Southampton have managed to finish in the top half of the Premier League despite losing several top players and two managers to other Premier League clubs year in year out.
They sacked Claude Puel at the end of last season despite the club finishing a strong 8th and reaching the final of the League Cup.
When they appointed Mauricio Pellegrino as the new manager this season, the club would have hoped for a better season but things haven’t gone according to plan.
Saints find themselves in 14th place with 19 points and just two points above the drop zone! To make matters worse, they haven’t looked convincing throughout the season and might get dragged into a relegation battle if they don’t pull up their socks soon.
They have won just four games so far, losing 9 and drawing 7. Their struggle this season is down to their difficulty in finding the back of the net as they have scored just 20 goals after as many league games.
Pellegrino will be under pressure to lift the team up or face the music.