For the second successive season, all three promoted sides have been relegated back to the Championship. Reaching thePremier Leagueis the ultimate ambition for clubs in the second tier, but staying there is becoming increasingly difficult. The gap between the top flight and Championship is widening with each passing season. When the three promoted clubs – Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United – went straight back down last year it seemed like a quirk, something that had only happened once before in the history of English football, in the 1997-98 season. But now it feels like a trend.
Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich have gone down without putting up much of a fight; they picked up just 59 points between them, down on the already paltry total of 66 points that Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United won the season before as they slipped back to theChampionship. To put that in some context, the promoted teams won 100 points a decade ago and 151 two decades ago. The “battle” to avoid relegation this season was settled with four games to play – the earliest in Premier League history – and the best of the promoted teams, Leicester, finished 13 points adrift of the team in 17th, the biggest gap between relegation and safety in the history of the league.
The challenge for Leeds, Burnley andSunderlandis a big one – and the stakes are high. Luton, relegated from the top flight just a year ago, are now preparing to play in League One. The message is clear: the Premier League is only the promised land if you stay there. So how do the three teams coming up avoid suffering the same fate?
Southampton were doomed from the beginning as Russell Martin refused to budge on his principles. The manager had guided Saints to the Premier League by playing dominant, attacking football. They secured promotion while having more possession (65.6%) than any other team in the Championship. However, the Premier League is a whole different level. When you’re conceding goal after goal by trying to pass the ball out from the back, it’s worth admitting that pragmatism, not idealism, is what keeps teams afloat.
Martin’s refusal to adapt his tactics ended in tears. His record in the Premier League was awful: one win and 13 defeats in his 16 games in charge, with the team conceding 36 goals and scoring just 11. The decision to pull the trigger on Martin came too late to give them a real chance of consolidating a Premier League spot.
By appointing Ivan Juric, a manager whose approach is the polar opposite of Martin’s, the club was essentially admitting defeat in their bid to outplay opponents. But changing a team’s whole style midway through the campaign is easier said than done. Juric took over a side that had been coached to play a completely different way for the previous 18 months, and it showed. The former Roma manager (who had been sacked by them after just 12 games earlier in the season) picked up 0.29 points per game at Southampton, one of the worst records in Premier League history.
By contrast, Leicester chose to sack Steve Cooper far earlier than many expected. Cooper wasn’t a popular appointment in the first place given his Nottingham Forest roots, but he was sacked with the club in 16th and having claimed commendable results against Tottenham, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth. They brought in Ruud van Nistelrooy, quickly dropped into the relegation zone and went on to set a new record English football for losing eight home games in a row without scoring a goal. The grass isn’t always greener.
Timing, then, is vital if clubs are looking to change their manager. Getting it wrong can prove costly. The same can be said of recruitment. The Premier League is a far more physically and technically demanding league than the Championship. The temptation can be to assemble a bigger squad to cope with the demands of playing tougher opponents but the signings need to be of the right profile.
Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester all suffered due to a lack of experience in their squads, especially in defence. Indeed, Southampton’s biggest signing last summer was the centre-back Taylor Harwood-Bellis. He may have a great future ahead of him but, at 22 years of age with no Premier League experience, he wasn’t the experienced head they needed in their backline.
Ipswich invested in centre-backs Jacob Greaves and Dara O’Shea, two standout performers in the Championship, but they did not have the calibre to keep the club afloat in the top flight. Factor in the questionable decision to sign Arijanet Muric, a goalkeeper whose limitations had been exposed the previous campaign atBurnley, and it was always going to be an uphill struggle. If you are going to revamp the most important part of your team – the centre of your defence – find experienced players who can cope at Premier League level.
Leicester also failed to sort out their defence before the season. They only signed two defenders this season. Caleb Okoli was restricted to just 12 league starts due to injury, which was unfortunate, but their other signing, Woyo Coulibaly, did not arrive at the club until January. They needed to act decisively last summer. The promoted clubs have smaller budgets but it’s no wonder they conceded so many goals – 248 between them.
So here are three key pieces of advice for Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland: their managers need to adapt their principles to beat the drop; the clubs should make early and realistic decisions about sacking their managers; and they have to ensure that they recruit to a Premier League standard, focusing on quality over quantity.
Daniel Farke and Scott Parker should have learned a lot from their previous experiences in the top flight but Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland need to get their acts together quickly if we are to avoid seeing the three promoted sides succumb to relegation for the third year running.
This is an article byWhoScored