History will encourage West Ham as Premier League data reveals survival chances
West Ham find themselves in the bottom three at Christmas with a mountain to climb to avoid relegation.
On Saturday, West Ham were beaten 3-0 by Manchester City, and on the same day, Leeds thrashed Crystal Palace 4-1 to move six points clear of the 18th-place Hammers.
The West Yorkshire side have picked up some crucial wins during December, whereas Nuno Espirito Santo’s men have floundered with no wins in their previous six matches.
According to Opta’s supercomputer, West Ham have a 61.76 per cent chance of being relegated, but history suggests their probability of surviving is higher than that.
Premier League data suggests West Ham could survive
BBC Sport has studied data from each of the 33 Premier League seasons, and they’ve found that the team in 18th place have survived on two out of three occasions.
| Third bottom | Second bottom | Bottom | |
| Teams | 33 | 33 | 33 |
| Survived | 21 | 15 | 4 |
| Relegated | 12 | 18 | 29 |
| Survival rate | 64% | 45% | 12% |
The above table shows that West Ham historically have a 64% chance of avoiding relegation to the Championship, which is more than Burnley’s 45%.
Encouragingly, only on four occasions in Premier League history have no teams survived after being in the bottom three at Christmas, while one team has avoided the drop 17 times.
That will give the Irons promise of salvaging a desperate situation and climbing out of the bottom three come May.
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Who could replace West Ham in the bottom three
As it stands, two promoted teams could survive an immediate return to the Championship, with Sunderland flying high in sixth and Leeds pulling up to 16th.
West Ham must sign a clinical striker in January to give themselves any chance of being on the right side of history, but they will also need teams above them to tail off.
Nuno’s former club, Nottingham Forest, have secured three wins in their last six league matches, although they were beaten by Fulham 1-0 on Monday night.
They will need a collapse from the Reds or Leeds to save the skin, as it looks highly unlikely that one of Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford or even Brentford will be dragged into the battle.
To boost their probability of staying in the top-flight, West Ham have set their sights on South American forward Flaco Lopez from Palmeiras.
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