struggler

plural strugglers

1. One who struggles.

   Huge credit must go to Championship strugglers Ipswich, who were well organised and kept their Premier League opponents at bay for 151 minutes in the tie, including more than an hour at the Emirates.

   2011 January 25, Paul Fletcher, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Ipswich (agg 3 - 1)”, in BBC

   1 more example

   […] she saw it was Dr Kenn’s face that was looking at her; that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, penetrating kindness in it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safe strand, but was looking with helpful pity toward the strugglers still tossed by the waves […]

   1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons