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Premier League Relegation Betting: Why the long face, Gareth?

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Sleepless nights, sweating, finger nails chewed right to the knuckle. Frank Gregan knows all about managing a team in a relegation dogfight. Here, he tells us who he thinks is coping the best of this year's Premier League strugglers.

I enjoyed the post match interviews of Roy Keane and Gareth Southgate last Saturday night. Their emotions were polar opposites, the relief of Keane compared to the ongoing anxiety of Southgate. As ever, Gareth was full of common sense and his appraisal of the situation that his club are in a very healthy position compared to the sides below him was spot on. He exuded logic and had I only been listening to the interview I would have been under the impression that he was relaxed and in control. I was however, watching him, and the stress and strain was etched on every line of his face. He looked exactly what he is, a man haunted by the most irrational of demons! Why?

The irony of it is that those beneath him seem to be coping better with the mental pressure. Fulham, Birmingham, Reading and Bolton are in the mire and in a real dogfight. Roy Hodgson was down at one stage last Saturday and has been preparing to be relegated almost from the day he took over. If he keeps Fulham up it will be seen as a tremendous achievement, let's face it, a management team of Paul Daniels and Harry Potter would have struggled to pull it off! He will not be sleeping as fretfully as the others. Gary Megson was also written off a couple of weeks ago, but seven points from the last nine have seen a transformation in Bolton's fortunes. Wigan are not quite safe but it will need a real cruel twist of fate to see them go down.

All of the above managers will be desperate to keep their club's status in the top flight. It will be affecting their day to day lives, dominating the four and a half inches between their ears every minute of the day. A continuous sleep of four hours will be about the best they can hope to get and it is in the wee hours of the morning when the "doom gremlins" attack.

I've been in relegation battles before and they are not much fun. In non-league there is the Conference National and then there is the rest, exactly the same as we have the Premier League and then - the football oblivion which is the Championship and beyond.. My hardest relegation battle was trying to survive in the Conference National with Forest Green Rovers. In our situation we needed seven points from our remaining three games against Doncaster, Kidderminster and Kettering in order to have any chance of survival. No matter how positive you are, you tend to listen to the doom gremlins in your head at four o'clock in the morning when they point out you are averaging under a point a game for the season and now need to average over two points in the remaining fixtures just to have a chance.

Each and every one of the managers involved in this year's Premier League battle against the drop will be receiving visits from their own demons. Some of it however is totally irrational. Gareth Southgate's stress filled face is unnecessary, there is virtually no chance of the Boro going down and if you have big pockets lay them at [34.0] and make yourself 3% interest in just over a week. Your money is probably safer invested there rather than in one of our under pressure building societies!

I think Fulham are one of the sides that will join Derby. I already recommended backing them at [1.55] a couple of months ago and I remain happy with that bet. The third team down is much harder to find but I believe it will be between Birmingham at [2.0] and Reading at [3.45]. I suggested backing Reading at [7.4] a couple of months back because I thought that was a massive price for a side that had shown when they endured eight successive defeats that they are capable of a dramatic slump. Birmingham have been very poor of late and, no matter how much spin Alex McLeish puts on last week's result against Liverpool, the truth is they let a two goal lead slip at home. That must really have hurt. However, I'm sticking with Reading to continue their downward spiral which will take them into the Championship.

The result of my relegation dogfight was that we beat Doncaster 1-0 and drew 3-3 with Kidderminster having been 3-0 down with twenty minutes to play. We had to win on the last day against Kettering and hope other results went our way. We scored twice in the last five minutes to win 2-0 and stayed up on goal difference. That folks, is why Gareth Southgate is looking so stressed, this game throws up weird results at this time of year.