What goes up must come down, so the old saying goes, but that hasn’t strictly been true for promoted teams battling for survival in the Premier League. In the past five seasons, only seven of the 15 promoted sides have been relegated back to the Championship at the first time of asking – which, in theory, gives Luton Town, Sheffield United and Burnley a 50/50 chance of surviving the drop in 2023/24.
That’s news that will send shivers down the spine of supporters of Everton, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, who to one degree or another were involved in the relegation dogfight last season, while fans of Wolves and Fulham might not exactly be imbued with confidence given the manner in which their heroes ended the 2022/23 campaign.
Although much of the attention will be focused on the top end of the Premier League table, matters in the basement could prove to be far more entertaining for those not personally involved.
Fate of the Eight
When you fire up the betting odds for football leagues like the EPL, normally you’d expect there to be two or three favourites for relegation and then a couple of other teams as possible outsiders. But in 2023/24, a whopping EIGHT clubs are priced at 7/2 or shorter for the drop: Luton (1/3), Sheffield United (8/11), Bournemouth (7/4), Burnley (5/2), Nottingham Forest (13/5), Fulham (10/3), Wolves (10/3) and Everton (7/2).
The takeaway point is that the bookmakers, who employ the sharpest analytical minds, are at a loss when predicting who will suffer relegation this coming season.
The odds confirm that Luton Town are expected to struggle in their return to the top flight. They will have, by far and away, the smallest budget to work with in the transfer market this summer, which isn’t ideal when you consider they won less than half of their games in the Championship last season (21 of 46). The Hatters, sadly, may find the step up in grade simply too much to bear.
📈 Gary O’Neil guided AFC Bournemouth to 15th in the Premier League.
😳 He’s been sacked. pic.twitter.com/eRvmDS3Hwn
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) June 19, 2023
Then you can take your pick from the remaining seven. Sheffield United and Burnley will be buoyed by promotion, whereas Bournemouth have sacked the manager (Gary O’Neil) that masterminded their survival last season.
Meanwhile, Forest stayed up by just four points, Everton survived by the skin of their teeth on the final day of the campaign and Wolves and Fulham showcased relegation form from March onwards.
The Blueprint
So how do you avoid relegation?
In Everton’s case, it was appointing the right manager at the right time. With just three wins from their opening 20 games in 2022/23, the Toffees were sleepwalking towards relegation with Frank Lampard at the helm.
So in came Sean Dyche, who won 21 of the available 54 points in his 18 games in charge – a points-per-game ratio of 1.16 that would see Everton comfortably survive if extrapolated over a whole season. Bournemouth achieved something similar with O’Neil.
The Nottingham Forest transfer spending spree isn’t over yet!
Expect January arrivals Forest fans 🔜#TelegraphFootball #NFFC
— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) December 20, 2022
At Forest, the battle plan was altogether different: they decided to spend their way out of trouble. They forked out a whopping £165 million on new players during the two transfer windows, which proved money well spent in the end… Just about, anyway.
It seems unlikely that any of the eight teams predicted to be in the mire in 2023/24 will follow the Forest path to survival, so once again expect managerial appointments – timed to perfection – to prove to be the key difference maker.
