Up until the last decade or so, a newly-promoted Premier League side were looking at around nine other teams who they could realistically challenge to avoid relegation.
That is three teams out of 10 going down. Still around a 30 per cent chance of relegation, but promising enough odds. Now, though, statisticians believe it is increasingly closer to three out of five – a 60 per cent chance of going straight back down. Not so appetising.
The chance of an instant return has doubled because the so-called “bigger” clubs who were still in the bracket of relegation potential, such as Aston Villa and Newcastle United, were bought by uber rich owners. The smart algorithms of Brighton and Brentford shifted the odds and percentages in their favour.
If the trend of the last two seasons continues, there will be a 100 per cent chance of going straight back down next season for the promoted sides.
And there are alarming statistics emerging in recent seasons that should concern not only Burnley and Leeds United fans, the two clubs celebrating promotion on Monday, but any supporters of English football.
"Don't scare me with the Premier League!"
Daniel Farke on Leeds' promotion from the Championship, and the excitement of being able to play in the PL with fans in the stadium once more 🏟️ pic.twitter.com/sRPq2uoXQN
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) April 21, 2025
Before the start of last season, it had been a quarter of a century since three teams promoted to the top flight had been relegated straight back down again. Before 1997-98, when Bolton Wanderers, Barnsley and Crystal Palace came and went, it had never happened.
And if you think about it, with all the variables involved in football clubs, a league season and individual matches, statistically speaking it should be incredibly unlikely for that to happen. Yet now, when it is confirmed that Ipswich are down, it will have happened twice in successive seasons.
It is becoming less a promotion from the Championship, more a pre-relegation.
Is this merely a quirk of fate? A bit of fun had by the football maths gods? Or something more concerning?
Fans came out in force against the “Big Six” clubs agreeing to join a breakaway Super League with no relegation. If the current trajectory continues, one will effectively be created by stealth at the top of English football.
The mammoth television rights deals are widely celebrated. Indeed, the Premier League has become one of the country’s greatest modern exports. Yet it is having a distorting effect, destroying one of the fundamental things that has made it so great.
It is perhaps no surprise that the three clubs with the lowest squad value this season are Ipswich Town (£240m), Leicester City (£234m) and Southampton (£225m).
And – surprise, surprise – look at the 2023-24 season and, again, the three relegated clubs also had the lowest squad values. Burnley, with £234m, Sheffield United, with £130m and Luton Town, £121m.
Yes, there are discrepancies – a few teams outperform their value, a few underperform it – but largely each season the more valuable the squad, the higher you finish.
Newly-promoted clubs, restrained by financial chains, no longer have the spending power to reach those above. The gap is widening. Nottingham Forest had to cheat to overcome it – overspending and incurring a three-point deduction.
“The gap between the middle classes and the newly promoted in terms of wages and transfer spend is increasingly significant,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire tells The i Paper.
“Luton and Sheffield United had wage bills of £57m and £64m last season – Burnley still have not published theirs – which compares to an average of £208m and a median of £161m. It looks as though they were paying players £25,000 to £28,000 a week, which by Premier League standards is very low.
“Similarly, in terms of transfer spend, Luton were lowest at £27m and Sheffield United third lowest at £53m. The average was £162m. Some clubs are effectively budgeting for relegation.”
That is a bleak prospect, but you can see why.
When Burnley came up with an astonishing 101 points in the 2022-23 season, they were relegated straight back down.
They were probably not helped by former manager Vincent Kompany’s insistence on playing a style of risky, passing-out-from-the-back football, which helped him land the Bayern Munich job but not Burnley stay up.
And maybe Scott Parker’s “boring” football – Burnley are on course for an English football defensive record, having conceded 15 goals in 44 league games – might be the antidote to the Premier League’s promotion poison. Or maybe it will just be a dull way to go back down.
Leicester and Ipswich played great football in the Championship, but it didn’t translate to Premier League safety.
Last season, when the pair secured the top two places with, respectively, 97 and 96 points, it was the first time two Championship sides had both amassed over 95.
Southampton came up via the play-offs and are on course to equal Derby County’s record lowest points total in Premier League history (11).
The trio are on course for the top flight’s fewest points per game average – 0.51 at time of writing – ever. The record they will beat? Last season’s, when Sheffield United, Luton and Burnley averaged 0.58.
Simply put: Championship clubs are finding it increasingly difficult to get a foothold in the Premier League. Harshly put: the established Premier League pack are easily crushing the very best the Championship has to offer.
It is, at least, registering on the radars of football pundits.
“There’s no doubt it’s becoming more fixed, the Premier League,” Gary Neville said this week.
“That’s a fact. It’s not necessarily the three teams going up and down, but it’s becoming more and more difficult. The same five or six teams going up and down.
“You always get the feeling there are certain clubs at the start of the season who have got a chance of going down and some have no chance. I think that’s becoming more fixed and that’s something to be concerned about. There are big challenges, and something is needed, but I don’t think that’s for today.”
If not today, then when? Wait too long, and it will be too late.
Andrea Jenkyns will fit right in with Reform UK's boys club