The cost of going down

Parachute payment is £22m

The three teams relegated from the Premier League will receive parachute payments during the next two seasons.

But the top flight and Championship gap gets bigger. Last season, each relegated club was paid £7.5million, estimated at more than £11m this time.

However, TV cash is the key. On average, each Prem team got £40m from TV this term - the Big Four more than £50m.

Yet each Championship side received less than £1m through TV revenue, rising to about £2m including the ladder payments.

Over the past two years, the difference between the Championship and the bottom Premier League side has risen from £19m to £28m.

Overall, the Premier League's total of £900m a season dwarfs the Football League's £33m per year.

And Prem relegation is estimated to cost a club between £25m and £30m in revenue this season.

Derby v Reading

If Reading had kept their mouths shut this could have been a relatively straightforward task against the Premier League's whipping boys. Instead, having publicly humiliated Derby, what should have been a dream fixture has all the makings of a nightmare for Steve Coppell's team.

Birmingham v Blackburn

There's never a good time to hit a rocky patch, but Alex McLeish's team have got stuck in the wrong kind of rut at just the wrong time. It is now five matches since they have tasted victory and although a point might be enough to save them on goal difference if everything falls their way, a win still might not be enough.

Portsmouth v Fulham

You wait all season for an away win and then two come along together. If Fulham make it three in a row on the road they will survive. And in Portsmouth, with Wembley and an FA Cup final appearance on their minds, Roy Hodgson's side may just have found the right opposition to finish with.