Lowest ever points average for 3 promoted sides
©TM/IMAGO
Last May, for the first time since 1998 in the Premier League, all three teams that were promoted from theChampionship the previous season were relegated. Sheffield United,Burnley andLuton all went straight back down, and the former two put up little fight. Those three teams finished on 16, 24 and 26 points respectively and all got relegated despiteEverton andNottingham Forest receiving points deductions. It was only the second time that event had ever occurred in the Premier League, after Crystal Palace,Barnsley andBolton all went straight back down in the 1997/98 campaign.
Incredibly, just 12 months later and that feat has repeated itself.Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich have all had their fate confirmed. And there’s still four games left to play. Bottom-placed Saintssit in 20th and could still be set to share the unwanted feat of the Premier League’s worst ever team. Leicesterand Ipswich have faired ever so slightly better, but have still offered little to no hope of genuinely maintaining their position in the English top-flight. It’s the first time in Premier League history that all relegated clubs have been confirmed with as many as four games remaining.
With all three of the promoted sides going straight back down again, what sort of image does that bode for the Premier League? Is the gulf in quality between the English top-flight and the Championship bigger than ever before? And is the Premier League now becoming a closed shop only for the elite? Could the same teams end up consistently holding a hierarchy over the division? The current squad market values of three promoted teams are the lowest in the division.
Is the Premier League becoming a closed shop?
As touched upon above, last season very much highlighted how hard it is for promoted teams to survive in the cauldron that is the modern Premier League. All three sides looked out of their depth throughout the campaign. While 18th placed Luton put up a spirited effort, with a squad not quite built for the English top-flight, they were still well off the pace. This season they are 21st in the Championship with largely the same squad. Last term, the average points of the three relegated sides was just22 points; the previous lowest average for the three promoted sides after 38 games was 27.3 in 2007/08 (Sunderland, Birmingham, Derby). On only one other occasion it been under 32 – in 2021/22 when Brentford, Watford and Norwich managed 30.3. This season, based on the the current points totals of Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester, they would amass an average of just 18 points.
To put into perspective how poor and ill-equipped last season’s three promoted sides were, it’s interesting to look at the worst points totals in Premier League history. When we look across the seasons (since 1992/93 when the Premier League began) all three of last term’s relegated teams feature in the top 20 when it comes to worst points totals; Sheffield United joint-third worst with 16, Burnley joint-13th worst with 24, and Luton joint-16th worst with 26. Below, we have isolated the worst points totals for 20th placed sides, 19th placed sides, and 18th placed sides, and it makes for grim reading for last season’s relegated trio.
As can be identified above, Sheffield United were the third-worst 20th placed team in Premier League history, Burnley were the second-worst 19th placed team, and Luton were the worst 18th placed side. Southampton are currently projected to finish the season on just 12 points based on their current points total, which would make them the division’s second-worst ever team. Leicester are projected to get 20 points, which would make them the worst-ever 19th placed team, and Ipswich are projected to get 23 points, which would make them the outright-worst 18th placed side. With so much money in the Premier League nowadays, the permanent elite is stretching from the traditional ‘Big six’ teams right down the division, with it increasingly harder for Championship teams to muscle in and become stalwart Premier League sides.
All three promoted teams relegated for the second season in-a-row
At the start of the season, the three promoted sides were the three favourites to go down. Ipswich came up after back-to-back promotions from League One, with many of their current squad coming all the way through the divisions with the Tractor Boys. Leicester lost the manager that got them promoted, asEnzo Maresca left for Chelsea, and have since swapped his replacement Steve Cooper for Ruud van Nistelrooy. While Southampton came up via the play-offs, after finishing fourth and conceding 63 goals. None of those situations seemed ideal to take the Premier League by storm.
To have just 10 wins between all three promoted sides, 34 matches into the campaign doesn’t bode well.Does it matter that much? Perhaps to some more than others. Modern football is practically designed to support the elite and there’s clearly a portion of the Premier League’s audience who have little care about the diversity of the sides fighting in the division. But one of the great spectacles of the English game is it’s football pyramid, and the idea that the biggest clubs and the smallest sides all compete in the same vast structure, and that everybody can move up or move down according to form. But a pyramid has to have a somewhat smooth incline; if there are steep, almost unassailable steps, it takes away the structure’s ultimate strength – it’s competition and possibilities.
