My initial thoughts on putting this post up was a worry in the shower about the away game at Wolves in the 17/18 season. They ripped us to shreds in the penalty area with quick passes and superb positional play. This team with additions came 7th last season. Also in the 18/19 season where Harvey Barnes out paced Bash over 8 yards many can do this in the Prem.
Now we have rightly celebrated and given it the big one for going up, the reality of playing teams that could rip us to shreds has dawned.
We will take some big beatings next season but I'm not bothered as long as we continue to improve and build. Hopefully pick up a few wins on the way, enough to stay in the division but if not, have strengthened even more.
To look at how we will cope I think we need to split the Prem into 3 parts -
A) The Top 6 all looking for Champions League / winning the Prem
B) The Mulch Out of the top 6 but clear of any relegation threat
C) Threat of relegation.
Obviously we are in "C" So we need to look at getting as many points as possible from B & C. Any points we get from A would have to be considered bonus points.
So Hopefully we can get 4 bonus points from catching a Hazard free Chelsea on an off day and maybe a draw against Man Utd who will be re-building.
The Mulch set are possible points games Everton, Wolves, Leicester, the cheats and possibly Newcastle depending on ownership. If we can get 7 points from these five we would need 27 points from the C teams, to match our last points tally in the prem which should be enough to stay up.
The C teams are therefore Watford, Palace, Bournmouth, Burnley, Southampton, Brighton, Aston Villa and Norwich. We would need the equivalent of 9 wins from 16 games including 8 away.
We have a chance at BDTBL with the crowd behind us and with a few additions, I just hope we have enough. Our tactics will catch some out but we will get caught on the counter a few times.
So my opinion is that it will be close but we have a good chance to stay up.