One down, another ready to fall. If Leicester City, a team that has not scored the league at home since early December, fails to beat the Premier League champion elected Liverpool on Sunday, their relegation will be confirmed.
Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s team will join Southampton with their packaged bags and their tickets stamped for an instant return to the championship. Ipswich Town will follow shortly.
All this led to the question: is it the worst of the last three of all time?
It’s the easy bit: yes.
Southampton’s relegation was the first in the history of the Premier League. They have not yet broken the 11 -point derby record, although their late equalizer in West Ham has put it at the level.
Leicester has lost its last eight home games without scoring a goal, a record for the high flight. Do not score against Liverpool and they will be the first side of high -level history to have made nine goalless games, whatever the results.
Leicester City will be relegated to the Premier League if they do not beat Liverpool on Sunday
Southampton’s relegation was the first in the history of the Premier League and they have 11 points
Ipswich also seems condemned, which means that the three promoted teams will be relegated immediately
Only two other teams in history in the four divisions have never done so, Mansfield at the third level in 1971 and Wolves in the second between 1984 and 1985.
If Leicester decreases on Sunday, it will only be the third time in the era of the Premier League that two teams have been confirmed with five games to do.
This condemned trio is also underway to break the lowest counts combined points for the relegated teams.
Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United set a new hollow last season when they only gathered 66 points between them, 10 less than the lowest preceding of 76 in Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield in 2018-19. It was the first time that none of them reached 30 points.
At their current points, Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich will not reach 60. They are on the point for the least victories and most defeats. Their difference in objectives is already worse than all premier league seasons except two.
So, unless something remarkable happens and the sun stops getting up in the morning, they will be the worst.
The most interesting questions are whether it is a Blip, nothing to fear or at the start of a trend of the financial gulf constantly increasing between the Premier League and the Championship and what, if necessary, the clubs can do to ride it.
Because it was never like that. During nearly 100 English high flight seasons from the first, which included automatic relegation in 1898-1999 until 1996-1997, only one did not end with all the descended sides.
They are statistically on the right track to be the worst three at the bottom of the Premier League in history
The trio should also reach a total of cumulative points of 59, the lowest of all time
The first was in 1997-1998, when Crystal Palace finished down, Barnsley broke down despite the quarter-final of the FA Cup and Bolton was relegated to the difference in goals despite the achievement of this mystical 40-point lens.
We had to wait until last season to see him for the second time when Sheffield United, Luton and Burnley all endured an immediate return to the championship.
And now it will happen again, two years on the trot. When Leicester and Ipswich are sealed, this means that 10 of the last 15 teams promoted have undergone instant relegation.
The fact that Sheffield United and Burnley, so dismal in the Premier League, are now both in the mixture for an instant return to the elite, as Leicester and Southampton did it before them, suggests that we could start to see a group of Yo-Yo clubs paid by the parachute, but not have what it takes for the first league.
So how do you take the jump and, above all, stay there? Because other teams show that you can. The previous season, none of the promoted teams has lowered itself.
One of them, Nottingham Forest, is about to qualify for the Champions League while the others, Bournemouth and Fulham, are both in the mixture for Europe.
It was the same thing in 2017-2018 when Newcastle, Brighton and Huddersfield remained standing.
Newcastle has since been in the Champions League and has just won the League Cup. Brighton played in Europe and until recently the race for the first five.
Burnley was relegated last season, but get closer to an instant return to the elite
Leeds also seems ready to be promoted, just two years after being relegated to the EFL
Southampton spent 11 seasons in the elite, but they were relegated to their last two
Money helps. The Nottingham Forest made follies of 165 million pounds sterling when they went up and were struck with a deduction of points for their troubles.
They probably think it was a price to pay from where they are looking at now, although others can think that it is a depressing perspective on modern football that having to break the rules of the PSR is its only hope.
Newcastle is supported by a nation state. Even Brighton, long announced as the standard for good business hunting, thanks to their super secret transfer algorithms, are now large. The data collected by the TransferMarkt website show that Brighton has had the biggest expenses in summer in world football at more than 150 million pounds Sterling.
But the money is not everything. Only Brighton and Napoli had a greater net expenditure than IPSWICH in summer at almost 110 million pounds sterling. They are soon straps. Southampton spent more than 100 million pounds sterling. Forest has just survived this first season despite their expenses. Do you need more than one large summer dashboard to make the jump now?
Even it is not always enough. Even if you think you have established yourself, you are fools if you think you have won a Premier League place for life – just ask Leicester.
Harald since their title victory as a model for a modest -size club, they finished fifth twice, then fell with the seventh highest wage bill in the division.
The Foxes and Southampton both spent nine and 11 seasons in the elite respectively before descending two seasons ago. All the Leeds, Burnley and Sheffield United have finished in the first half of the Premier League in the last six seasons.
More than ever, clubs must work well. This chronicle revealed last week that the gap between the middle of the table and the first four was closer than ever. Manchester United, Tottenham and West Ham can thank their stars that the promoted teams were so bad.
If clubs of this size can be dragged towards the mud by errors and mismanagement, the promoted sides have no margin of error, whatever they spend.
It is possible to survive, even to prosper, but the chances of doing so are more stacked than ever.
