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After a loss at Chelsea on the opening weekend of the season, Hull City manager Steve Bruce gave a frank and intelligent response to the defeat. "It was always going to be difficult here. Our season will be defined by games like next week, no disrespect to Norwich of course." Hull went on to beat Norwich 1-0 and Bruce will have been able to mark a big three points in the column of season defining matches. Bruce hasnt spoken publicly about just how many of these matches his team faces, but if he did hed probably say 24. In the last four Premier League seasons, seven teams have always finished in the top eight. United and City from Manchester, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham from London and Liverpool and Everton from Merseyside. Only two teams in the past four years (Aston Villa of 09-10 and Newcastle of 11-12) have cracked the top seven and even in those years, Liverpool or Everton still finished in the top eight. The fact that not all of the super seven can win the league is irrelevant to teams below them. All seven of them are seen on a different level to the others and it will not be surprising at all to see them fill the top seven spots in the Premier League when it ends on May 11th, 2014, just as they did last season. These seven teams are the elite and although the other teams will pick points off them on a regular basis they are not points that should be expected often and do not accurately define their success long-term. Teams like Hull know any points gained against the super seven are an important bonus and, subsequently, points against the other 12 teams, lets call them the decisive dozen, are essential. There are, of course, clear divisions of talent inside the group of teams outside the bottom seven but the gap in quality is not what it used to be. Football managers often drop cliches into their answers such as, fine lines and small margins, when it comes to separating success and failure, and it isnt difficult to see why. Last season just 13pts separated 8th place West Brom, who everyone described as having a great season, and relegated Wigan Athletic. West Brom finished with 49pts, 35 achieved against the decisive dozen and an impressive 14 against the super seven. Wigan finished with 36pts, 30 achieved against the decisive dozen and just 5 against the super seven. This means in 24 of the 38 matches (almost two thirds of the season-63%) West Brom gained just five more points versus the weaker teams in the league than a team now playing outside of the Premier League. From this we can draw a few conclusions. There will be some who feel Wigan got relegated because they didnt get enough points from the top seven but, in fact, the truth is they didnt get enough against the decisive dozen, and neither did West Brom. Let us take a closer look at the last four Premier League seasons. These tables are in the order of the non super seven teams and how they performed in decisive dozen games. Next to their point total in those games is their point totals against the super seven. 2009/10Aston Villa 48-16Birmingham 41-9Stoke 40-7Fulham 34-12Bolton 34-5Sunderland 32-12West Ham 31-4Wolves 29-9Wigan 26-10Hull 20-10*Burnley 19-11*Portsmouth 16-3* *- relegated It is no surprise to see the bottom three teams had the worst records in decisive dozen matches (these three teams were worse than the rest by some margin) but it is a surprise that two of them were better than many against super seven sides. 2010/11Fulham 44-5Sunderland 35-12Stoke 35-11Bolton 35-11Newcastle 34-12Blackburn 34-9Wigan 33-9WBA 31-16Birmingham 30-9*Aston Villa 29-19Blackpool 28-11*Wolves 26-14West Ham 24-9* Unlike 2009/10 when 31 points would have been enough to survive, the 2010/11 season was very competitive at the bottom with two teams being relegated on 39pts. Trends to notice here are how relegated teams fail to get more than 30pts in the first column and the substantial drop off Birmingham and West Ham had in those totals from the season previous. They were relegated because of their inability to get more decisive dozen points, not points against the super seven which are actually admirable. Another thing to look at is how a team like Aston Villa fared in decisive dozen games. Villa finished 9th that year with 48pts but were very average in games not against the super seven which pointed to an obvious regression coming if they didnt evaluate themselves properly while preparing for the 2011/12 season. 2011/12Newcastle 50-15WBA 40-7Fulham 39-13Norwich 39-8Swansea 35-12Sunderland 35-10Wigan 31-12Aston Villa 31-7Stoke 29-16Bolton 29-7*Blackburn 23-8*QPR 22-15Wolves 22-3* Like West Ham and Birmingham in 10/11, Bolton and Blackburn were relegated because a significant drop off in points gained in column one to the season previous, both slipping under 30. Villa didnt bolster their squad the way they needed to and were very fortunate to survive in 2011/12, gaining just two more points in decisive dozen games (12 less in column two) and avoiding relegation by that same margin. A look at the performances of Wigan, Stoke and QPR also pointed to some serious concerns heading forward as they gained far too many points against super seven teams than their results in decisive dozen matches suggested they should. 2012/13West Ham 40-6Swansea 38-8Fulham 37-6Aston Villa 36-5WBA 35-14Stoke 34-8Newcastle 33-8Sunderland 31-8Wigan 30-5*Norwich 29-15Southampton 29-12Reading 23-5*QPR 18-7* Such concerns for Wigan, Stoke and QPR did materialize. All three teams saw their point totals in super seven games drop by 50 per cent or more and two of them were relegated. Stoke survived after gaining more points in column one but they still had their worst season of their five in the Premier League. Sunderland, Norwich and Southampton ended last season in a similar spot to Wigan, Stoke and QPR. Norwich and Southampton, in particular, scored far too many points against super seven teams than their record in decisive dozen matches suggested. Southamptons imbalance comes from a change of manager in January. Under new boss Mauricio Pochettino they claimed 10pts from just six super seven games but in the summer he rightfully spoke about the teams poor performances against teams in the bottom half last season and then spent money on his squad to address such an issue. No team knows more about small margins than Norwich City. After a loss at home to Aston Villa last May they had just 38pts from 36 matches and the Carrow Rd faithful feared relegation. The Canaries would go on to win their last two matches and finished 11th in the table, albeit just eight points ahead of Wigan. Last season Chris Hughtons side beat Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and didnt lose at all to Tottenham, yet still flirted with relegation because they were a worse team for 63% of the season than Wigan. Like Pochettino, Hughton recognized his team needed strengthening, and spent over 25 million pounds this summer on new players. He will be aware that in the last four seasons any side that finishes with less than 30pts in column one and 10pts or more in column two goes on to score less in column two the next year, forcing the team to either improve in decisive dozen games or get relegated. Norwich fit this mold and, even with investment in the summer are not a side that should expect to get 15pts from super seven games this season. They simply must gain more than 29pts than their 24 other matches if they want to maintain survival and six points from four of those matches so far is a good start. Ray Fosse Jersey . -- Lara Gut of Switzerland regained the overall World Cup lead with Sundays super-G win in Lake Louise, Alta. Sandy Alomar Jr. Indians Jersey . He did one better Sunday by holing out a pitching wedge from 142 yards for eagle, capping a remarkable 28 on the back nine to win The Championship at Laguna National. https://www.cheapindiansonline.com/1998u...ey-indians.html. Colorado came up big against Chicago last spring, and repeated that performance Tuesday night. Varlamov stopped 36 shots and Paul Stastny had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche in a 5-1 victory over the Blackhawks. Dennis Martinez Jersey . His stated reason for abruptly resigning as head coach of Canadas Olympic womens hockey team was he felt there were doubts about his ability to coach the team to Olympic gold in February. Aaron Civale Jersey .B. -- Canadian pairs skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford went from elated to frustrated in the span of a few minutes.LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Andrew Wiggins is finding it hard to be everybodys Super Bowl. That was the way that Kansas coach Bill Self described the up-and-down season of his talented freshman forward. One day, Wiggins will be pouring in 26 points against Florida, the next day he will be struggling to get his shot off against UTEP. Its already been a season of growing pains for the No. 1 recruit in last years class, and while the eighth-ranked Jayhawks are starting to soar, Wiggins is still searching for his stride. "Hes so naive in so many ways," Self said. "I dont think he thinks about the fact hes everybodys Super Bowl when they have a chance to play against him. "Weve told him," Self said, "but I dont think hes felt that yet." After easily knocking off No. 24 Baylor on Monday night, Kansas (14-4, 5-0) has roared to five straight wins and first place in the Big 12. The last four of them have come against Top 25 teams, making the Jayhawks the first to accomplish that feat since North Carolina in 1997. Wiggins has been a big part of that success, of course. He scored 22 points against Kansas State, and poured in 17 against Iowa State and Baylor. But he also was held to nine points on 2-of-9 shooting against Oklahoma, and a season-low three points against Oklahoma State. Taken together, those are solid numbers for just about any freshman in America. Wiggins isnt just any other freshman. Ever since successfully dueling with Duke star Jabari Parker at a summer tournament, Wiggins has been anointed the next big thing. NBA scouts have flocked to Allen Fieldhouse to see him -- there were 28 in attendance last Saturday, when the Jayhawks knocked off the Cowboys. And hes done enough to prove that he could have a big future in the professional ranks. But hes also left many of those scouts, his coaches and just about every fan who has filed into the Phog hungry for more. "I think hes done well," Self said. "I also think theres another step he can take. He leaves me wanting more, so when people say certain things, I cant be upset. I want more, too." Self has tried to treat Wiggins like anybody else, in part to temper some of the otherr-worldly expectations.ddddddddddddThe prized forward has only done two one-on-one interviews with the media -- one of them with The Associated Press in December -- since the start of the season, and unless he has a big performance, Wiggins generally isnt made available to reporters following games. "Its a no-win, everything lose situation," Self said. "Theres no way to live up to the hype." When he does have a chance to speak, Wiggins has acknowledged that he didnt expect college basketball to be so hard. Players are bigger and stronger, faster and more athletic. There are no nights off, especially with Kansas playing the nations toughest schedule. "Yeah, I think so," Wiggins said, when asked whether hes starting to figure things out. "Im trying to be more aggressive right now, driving to the basket, getting good shots." Self said that some of the criticism levelled at Wiggins is unfair. After all, his stats -- 15.2 points, 6.1 rebounds per game -- are similar to those of Ben McLemore, who was the seventh overall pick in the draft after his only season playing in Lawrence. Then theres this difference: Wiggins will turn 19 next month, while McLemore had to redshirt a season and was two years older than Wiggins during his own freshman season. "Its just a different world," Self said. "These kids are entering school with the hype and in a lot of ways hes handled it beautifully in how hes deflected it, but in some ways he hasnt understood or we havent done a good job of explaining to him, because of the society and the media hype, if you dont produce, youre going to be the most talked-about person." Self would be fine if Wiggins is the most talked-about person at Kansas, of course, provided its for his accomplishments rather than his shortcoming. "So many times people get hung up on overall stats and things like that," Self said. "Hes just young, and with all the hype coming in, anything he did was going to be less than what the hype said he should do. And the bottom line is he figured it out, and hes playing his natural position, and hes learning to impact the game more and more." ' ' '