Premier League winners and losers: West Ham, Crystal Palace continue unbeaten runs

Loser: West Brom

West Brom’s winless streak continued on Sunday against Manchester United. The Baggies haven’t won a match since August, their second contest of the Premier League. That’s 16 games without a win.

While losing to second-place United isn’t worthy of a spot in the losers column by itself, losing or drawing your last 16 games certainly is. The streak moves them down to 19th place in the table on 14 points for the season. They’re only two points from last-place in the Premier League, which is a worse position than they were in before sacking Tony Pulis.

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Alan Pardew’s appointment was thought of as a safe, reasonable hire at the time. Most clubs that sack a manager mid-season are desperate in one way or another. They don’t want to think outside of the manager bubble because relegation can be deadly; just ask Sunderland, who were dropped from the top flight last season and are fighting relegation again in the Championship. Clubs often appoint an Alan Pardew, a Tony Pulis, a Sam Allardyce just to save a season that looks to be slipping away.

So far, Pardew’s appointment has been more of the same. Since officially hired on Nov. 29, West Brom have drawn Crystal Palace, lost to Swansea, drawn Liverpool and lost to Manchester United. To take just a single point from Palace and Swansea spells trouble. West Brom take a trip to Stoke in their next match, and if they can’t pick up a win against that flailing side, it’s hard to see them staying up.