The plans are in place, the tunnels are being dug, but just who will succeed in their bid for a Premiership reprieve?

With less than ten games to go until the end of the season the moment of truth is rapidly approaching for the Premiership’s strugglers, otherwise know as Sunderland, Portsmouth, Birmingham, West Brom and as an outside bet, Fulham. They are all fighting hard enough, but something is missing – Houdini perhaps?

Cue Harry Redknapp who, having presided over Portsmouth becoming the latest big winners in the Premiership’s basement battle, found Fratton Park reverberating to that strangest of emotions, joy at sealing three precious points from their first league win of 2006.

A brace from Pedro Mendes was the focal point for Portsmouth’s renewed belief that their Premiership status isn’t going to be relinquished easily, but not only did they leave it late against Manchester City, they are getting perilously close to running out of time in the top flight.

Redknapp will be desperate not to be the manager who, in successive seasons, presides over the relegation of the south coast’s two biggest clubs, but one victory does not Premiership survival secure and Portsmouth remain very precariously placed.

Pompey don’t look capable of consistently bringing off shock results like this, and there is only so much Harry ‘Houdini’ can do to bring this club back from the brink. When so much manoeuvring goes on behind the scenes it's no wonder that it’s reflected in results on the pitch, and if Portsmouth do go the way of the trapdoor, then those upheavals are what the club will be left reflecting on, not the odd victory snatched from the jaws of a draw.

Similar boardroom challenges are what have left Kevin Ball as the man at the helm of Sunderland’s rapidly sinking ship, but aside from the Black Cats who have, all bar the mathematics, returned to the Championship, Birmingham are keeping Portsmouth company in the two remaining relegation spots and are finding it equally difficult to work their way clear of trouble.

Given that Birmingham’s greatest hope of avoiding relegation is to swap places with West Brom, you’d have thought that their local derby, billed not so much a six-pointer as a twelve-pointer, would have focused minds, invigorated the St Andrews crowd and produced one of those supremely well-timed 3-point get out of jail moments.

Instead Birmingham were lucky to escape with a draw and keep within three points of safety. West Brom created gilt-edged opportunities to put the game out of Birmingham’s reach and extend their Premiership advantage over them to six points, but the Baggies were left to rue their wastefulness and Steve Bruce to concede that whilst the luck had gone Birmingham’s way in this game, it’s about the only thing that has this season.

Birmingham are a curious side, surely capable of so much more than they have delivered during this campaign and yet they don’t seem to be turning the tide of underachievement. Every week you expect that a team with the personnel Birmingham have at their disposal to pull themselves up by their bootlaces and begin to deliver to get the club who pay this handsome wage bill out of danger.

Yet their defence is, in the manager’s words, shambolic, and they are desperately short of goals. Despite having Forssell and Dunn back in the side after injury induced absences, both are still considerably below their imposing bests and need time to re-establish themselves, but if there is one thing that Birmingham don’t have, it’s time.

The fans are frustrated, Bruce is thinning on top due to the sheer exasperation of the situation, and these are dire times. To give the supporters credit they are willing enough, defiantly urging their club to snap out of what is becoming a season-long malaise, but they are witnessing a team short of fit, committed and motivated quality first-team players and a manager with a greater gambit of ideas.

Steve Bruce has been candid about Birmingham’s shortcomings and how he wants to change things should his side live to contest another season in the Premiership, but that is more in hope than expectation, while West Brom, having pulled off their amazing final day survival last season, clearly didn't learn enough if their current position is anything to go by.

Midlands football is in the doldrums at present, and with these two representing it, it’s no wonder. West Brom are to inconsistency what Bill Gates is to computers, while Birmingham are wasting away like an anorexic supermodel. You have got to wonder, should the final relegation spot come down to a battle between Birmingham and West Brom as it is predicted to, whether whichever club survives will be any better next term.

At least part of the reason why some of these more established Premiership clubs are struggling is because they, like the rest of the league, underestimated the quality West Ham and Wigan would bring to the top flight following their promotion.

By rights, or history at least, newly promoted clubs huff and puff during their early top flight forays, but not these two Championship flag bearers and the participants at the Premiership party they so triumphantly gatecrashed simply haven’t risen to the challenge.

Treading water isn’t good enough in this division; the weakest clubs always get found out and suffer for their carelessness. Just look at Fulham, whose dreadful win-less away form is threatening to drag them into the relegation dog-fight. It’s time to stand up and be counted, and right now no one in the bottom quarter of the Premiership has enough points in the bank not to dissolve in the red-hot relegation inferno.