At the foot of the Premiership, the race to avoid relegation has now been reduced from 10 teams last weekend to eight. Those teams are: Watford, West Ham, Sheffield United, Charlton, Wigan, Fulham, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough. If Villa and Boro reach 40 points (they’re both at 39), that should be enough to ensure safety.

But while Watford’s fate seems certain unless a string of miracles occur, the race is really down to five clubs to avoid the drop. Last season, the three teams who were relegated ended with the following number of points: Sunderland (15), West Brom (30) and Birmingham (34). So, with six games to go in this season, it looks like whichever three clubs that get relegated will have achieved more points than last season’s bottom three. However, that doesn’t cushion the blow for the teams who do drop.

To answer my question about which Premiership clubs deserve to get relegated, I don’t think any team deserves to get relegated. That’s too harsh. But three teams have to go down no matter what. When I made my predictions before the Premiership season began back in August, I said that Charlton, Sheffield United and Fulham would go down.

What’s fascinating is that the bottom eight teams in the EPL right now have had a rollercoaster of seasons. Charlton fell flat in the beginning with Iain Dowie and descended even further with replacement Les Reed. West Ham started the season brightly with Bobby Zamora, especially, bagging several goals. But after the Hammers first match with Carlos Tevez on the pitch (against Aston Villa, which I still think was one of the best games of the season thus far), West Ham has been in a tailspin until a few weeks ago.

Based on performances alone, here are the teams that I won’t be sad to see relegated:

Watford. No matter how much they’ve battled this season, their quality on the pitch just hasn’t been good enough. The team was devastated after star striker Marlon King was injured earlier in the season. While the club has been sensible by not overextending themselves financially and going into massive debt to buy players, they deserve to be playing in the Championship given their current level of talent.

Fulham. Other than the 2-2 draw against Chelsea and their 2-1 loss against Manchester United, Fulham has failed to impress me at all during the season. My hopes were increased when they signed Vincenzo Montella on loan, but Coleman needs to start “The Little Aeroplane” more between now and the end of the season to increase their chances of surviving the drop.

Manchester City. Sorry, but even though the team will be playing in the Premiership next season, I can’t think of one match all season where I was impressed by the side. Stuart Pearce will undoubtedly be sacked this summer, and the promise of a takeover from an American businessman will hopefully infuse the team with a new energy and cash to purchase quality players.

For me, West Ham, Charlton, Sheffield United and, to a lesser extent, Wigan, have impressed me this season. Neil Warnock’s side has been entertaining to watch (pre-Rob Hulse’s injury), while Charlton under Alan Pardew are far more entertaining than Man City. Wigan, at times, have been entertaining (especially during the early part of the season when they were playing good football but didn’t have much luck).

Which teams do you feel deserve to be relegated? Click the ‘comments’ link below and let everyone know.