If the majority of pundits are to be believed, Crystal Palace is certain of a return to the second tier.
Seven losses in seven Premier League matches with nary a goal, and the Eagles resembled a side crippled by the realities of relegation, when really, there's plenty of reason to be positive. Saturday's 2-1 win over Chelsea is a good place to start.
With roughly 21 percent of the league campaign in the rear view, here are three reasons to boost Eagles supporters' dwindling hopes while making an audacious claim: Palace will not finish in the bottom three.
A strenuous slate
For a side desperate for a fifth season of top-flight football on the trot, a more forgiving start to the season would have been helpful.
It also would have helped if Palace and its summer addition, Frank de Boer, had adequately prepared the squad for the season. Instead, the Dutchman tried to introduce a less direct finesse-based game with a back-three. It was never going to work.
An opening-weekend visit from a spirited Huddersfield side greeted an Eagles lot who appeared to be kicking a ball for the first time before a trip to Liverpool set the table for the daunting task of facing last season's home stalwarts, Burnley, and the two Manchester clubs in a seven-day window. To top it all off, Saturday's visit from Chelsea means Palace played the winner of every Premier League title since 2004 save for Leicester City's miracle 2015-16 campaign on the bounce.
Now for some good news. The Croydon side's next 11 matches heading into the festive period include a trip to Tottenham - who hasn't exactly turned Wembley into a fortress - and visits from Newcastle, West Ham, stuttering Everton, Stoke, Bournemouth, and Watford as well as away clashes with Brighton and West Brom. Hardly Alfredo Di Stefano's Real Madrid that.
Missing men
If Palace has two players in its squad of greater importance than Christian Benteke and Wilfried Zaha, only tireless fan favourite tough-tackling centre-half Mamadou Sakho can lay claim.
Benteke and Zaha were responsible for 22 of Palace's league goals a year ago - nearly half of the club's haul - and the pairing appeared in all but three of the south Londoners 38 Premier League. It was a tandem that proved lethal, with the Ivorian international Zaha's pace and trickery out wide a perfect complement for Benteke's towering aerial exploits.
This season, Zaha has played in just the season opener against Huddersfield before suffering a knee injury, and his brethren in attack Benteke picked up a similar ailment in the defeat at Manchester City. Even early-season revelation Ruben Loftus-Cheek has picked up a thigh niggle.
Because of the untimely spells on the treatment table, crossing savant Bakary Sako has been converted into a striker to deputise for Benteke, and former full-back Jeffrey Schlupp has been pushed forward to cover for Zaha. Even Connor Wickham - who struggles to hit the broadside of a barn with a map and compass - is out injured, prompting Roy Hodgson to give Freddie Ladapo a debut up top. For context, Ladapo scored just a quartet of goals last season whilst on loan with narrow League One survivor Shrewsbury Town.
Even with all the doom and gloom pacing the bowels of Selhurst Park, there is good news on the horizon. Zaha was a menace on the left flank against Chelsea bagging the match-winner and Benteke is expected back the first week of November just as the congested slate of holiday fixtures begins to rear its ugly head.
An absence of fortune
With De Boer out of the picture, Hodgson has returned some normalcy to Crystal Palace, and while the former England manager is notorious for taking a protracted approach to tactical changes, nothing can be worse than what his Dutch predecessor attempted.
A little luck wouldn't hurt either, and with a glance at several of its early tilts, it's clear fortune hasn't favoured the Eagles. A 1-0 defeat at Liverpool saw Sadio Mane benefit from a Luka Milivojevic error to score the match's lone goal. History repeated itself when Lee Chung-yong's gaffe led to Chris Wood's third-minute goal in a 1-0 defeat at Burnley.
Suddenly, bad luck and poor form had cemented a perfect marriage of ineptitude, and Palace slid down the table like a firefighter on a pole greased with lard. Even the best teams need luck on their side, and amid a disastrous start to the season, the slightest rays of sunshine are beginning to break through the somber clouds shadowing Selhurst Park.
After seven matches, Palace sat 15th in expected goals or xG, a metric that determines how often a club should score on average based on the quality of attempts. The Eagles' expected total through seven fixtures was 6.65, a number better than that of Stoke, Swansea, Burnley, Bournemouth, and Brighton. If Palace can start converting its chances with Benteke's and Zaha's returns, expect Hodgson's charges to climb the table, and for the trio of relegation spots to be divided among the aforementioned five and debutant darling Huddersfield.
Stranger things have happened in the Premier League.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)