Why are promoted teams getting relegated immediately?

Karan Ahgun

— 3 min read
Why are promoted teams getting relegated immediately?

For the second Premier League season in a row, all 3 promoted teams are almost inevitably going to be relegated back to the Championship immediately. Both Southampton and Leicester City have already been relegated, and Ipswich Town's fate looks to already be sealed as they have a 15 point gap to 17th place with 5 games to go. So why do promoted teams find it so hard to stay in the Premier League?

We used to have some epic relegation dogfights in the Premier League but recently, it has been very predictable to see which teams will be relegated. Southampton are currently on the same points as the Derby County team, who are regarded as the worst Premier League team of all time. There has been a concerted effort by those affiliated with Southampton to ensure that the club does not finish this season as the joint-worst Premier League team of all time. This highlights how big a gap there is between established Premier League clubs and clubs in the Championship, making it almost impossible for promoted teams to survive in the top flight. To further support this point, this season's bottom 3 are on course to have the lowest ever points tally collectively. Last season's bottom 3 collected 66 points altogether, whereas this season's bottom 3 have collected 60 points currently.

One of the most spoken about factors for this trend has been the lack of adaptability shown by promoted clubs in their style of play. Across all levels of football, there has been a big focus on playing football the "right way", and whilst this has brought teams success in the Championship, there has to be a level of compromise implemented when these teams come up. The most obvious examples of this over the past couple of seasons include Burnley in 23/24 and Southampton this season. Both teams were known to play beautiful, silky football in the Championship but when they came up to the Premier League, there was little to no compromise on their style of play, which gave them little hope of competing. This is further compounded by the fact that these teams mostly have Championship-level squads in the Premier League, and so things like playing out from the back and pressing aggressively are unlikely to come off at the highest level.

Burnley and Leeds United have already been promoted for next season's Premier League campaign and will be hoping to break the trend of going straight back down to the Championship. In order to do this, they must spend effectively in the summer and be adaptable to the rigours of Premier League football. There is a sizeable gap in quality between Premier League and Championship teams but you never know in football!

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