Every iteration of the Premier League has included Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea. Manchester City, last promoted in 2002, bought its way into the club as well. Granted, Everton has decided to start flirting with disaster in recent years, but we’ve been able to count on 35% of the league’s roster to remain stable. The other 65%, however, is awash in yo-yo teams and unpredictable rise-and-fall stories.
Well, they used to be unpredictable stories, anyway. For the last couple of seasons, the answer to “Who’s getting relegated?” has simply been, “Who just got promoted?” The last six teams that have come up to the Premier League have immediately gone back down. And it hasn’t even been particularly close: These six teams have averaged just 20.8 points in league play, and this year’s batch all clinched relegation in April. This season, Southampton has produced the second-worst point total in Premier League history, ahead of only 2007-08 Derby County.
The stratification has expanded to the second division as well: Among these six straight-back-down teams were a Burnley squad that had just averaged 2.20 points per game in the second-tier Championship (the fourth-best average of the last 20 years), a Leicester City team that had averaged 2.11 points per game (10th-best) and an Ipswich Town team that had averaged 2.09 (11th-best). Among this year’s promoted teams are Leeds United and Burnley squads that produced similarly awesome averages. But will that even slightly matter? Has the jump to the Premier League become too tenuous to land it safely?
Things are accelerating quickly, but there might still be lessons to learn from the teams that pulled it off. In the past decade, eight clubs have made the jump to the top flight and remain there. What lessons can we learn about how they did it? What might it take for one of this year’s promoted teams — Championship winners Leeds United, Burnley and Saturday’s playoff final winners Sunderland — to actually stay in the Premier League?
The Bees didn’t see first-division ball from 1947 to 2021, but they’ll play their fifth consecutive season in the Premier League next year. While they’ve slowly ramped up their transfer spending each year, they’re still near the bottom of the league in that regard. But one of the most analytics-friendly clubs in England has made up ground by simply knowing exactly what they are, identifying talent well and playing an intensely unique style of ball — sacrificing shot quantity for quality, endlessly attempting 1-vs.-1s, keeping the possession count high, dominating on set pieces and just being willing to try stuff.
They’ve also been able to hold onto Thomas Frank, a perfect manager for what they want to do. And with each passing year, they appear more willing to take risks and keep games wide open in the increasingly low-tempo Premier League.
First 2 seasons in the Premier League: 1.39 goals per game, 1.34 goals allowed
Last 2 seasons: 1.61 goals per game, 1.61 goals allowed
It will be interesting to see how Brentford approach trying to move further up the table — ninth place is an incredible accomplishment, but clubs tend to eventually aim higher than that (and sometimes overextend themselves in the process). But for a club with a lower-division budget, the stability they’ve achieved of late is remarkable.
Bournemouth
Promotion year: 2022
Consecutive years in the Premier League: 3
Respective finishes: 15th, 12th, 11th (to date)
After a brief Premier League stint in the mid-2010s (their first ever), the Cherries moved up for good (for now) in 2022. First they were lucky, and now they’re good.
Like others on this list, Bournemouth were defensively excellent in the Championship, but they took an aggressive and athletic approach that doesn’t always translate with an upgrade in competition: They allowed the fewest passes per defensive action (PPDA) and progressive carries, drew the second-most offsides and forced the third-most high turnovers. The transition to the Premier League didn’t go particularly well either — they were 20th in the league in xG differential and 19th in goal differential but took just enough points from close games to survive by five points. They took advantage of the good fortune, bringing manager Andoni Iraola from Rayo Vallecano, and making outstanding young-player acquisitions for three straight years: Antoine Semenyo, Dango Ouattara and Illia Zabarnyi in 2022-23; Justin Kluivert and Milos Kerkez in 2023-24; Evanilson and Dean Huijsen in 2024-25.
Iraola Ball is unique, combining urgent attacking and the fastest tempo in the league with conservative defense that always keeps lots of players behind the ball. But moving forward, they’ll have to deal with one of the downsides of success: poachers. Huijsen is on his way to Real Madrid, Kerkez and others might leave as well, and Iraola is consistently on big-club managerial candidates lists.
(Source: ESPN Research)
Two potential problems, however: First, Burnley produced an even higher point total in 2022-23 (101 points), and none of that even slightly correlated with Premier League success: They finished 19th in 2023-24 and went straight back down. Second, spending like a top-division team when you’re in the second tier brings some pretty big debt concerns with it. They lost over £60 million in their first year back down, one in which the team collapsed late and let promotion slip between their fingers. The figures should be similar for this season, and while they’ve sold extra shares in the club as a way of raising money, they will still likely have to make some player sales to avoid penalties. They’ll have options in that regard — there are currently 12 players with a Transfermarkt value of at least €16 million, and Leeds have half of them (Meslier, Struijk, James, Gnonto, defender Ethan Ampadu and forward Joël Piroe) — but keeping your roster core together only to watch it disintegrate a bit when you go back up isn’t optimal.
One more potential concern: It’s hard to replicate a dominant possession-and-pressing style once you’ve been promoted — just ask 2023-24 Burnley — and what was Leeds particularly good at this season? Possession and pressing: They were first in possession rate (61.2%), first in passes per possession (7.2), first in progressive passes (61.7) and first in progressive carries (75.9). Meanwhile, in the department of defensive pressure, they were first in progressive passes (28.4) and carries (39.7) allowed and second in PPDA (10.4). They used speed and athleticism to their extreme benefit in the Championship, and while that’s a delightful and entertaining style to bring to the table, they won’t be able to rely on athleticism advantages in the Premier League.
Survival will require a level of adaptation that Leeds couldn’t pull off two years ago. After developing a delightfully manic style under first Marcelo Bielsa and then Jesse Marsch, they panicked when faced with relegation in 2022-23, replacing Marsch with the more conservative Javi Gracia; when that didn’t work, they panic-fired Gracia and replaced him with ultra-conservative Sam Allardyce for four matches. He secured one point, and Leeds went down quietly. Daniel Farke has since reestablished Leeds’ aggressive mentality, but we’ll see if and where he chooses to get more conservative back in the top division.
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Under veteran Scott Parker this season, Burnley reintroduced more sturdy defensive work into the equation. Parker employs safe, steady possession as almost a defense mechanism, and it works really well in the second division: Burnley ranked fourth in the league in possession rate (56.6%) and fourth in passes per possession (6.4), and it mainly served to keep opponents far from their goal. They minimized opposing counter-attacks, gave opponents neither shot quantity (second in shots allowed per possession) nor shot quality (second in xG allowed per shot) and watched goalkeeper James Trafford pull off absolute magic all season. He ranked first in the league with an 81.5% save percentage and kept clean sheets in 29 of 45 starts (making Burnley shareholder J.J. Watt sweat in the process). There was undoubtedly some good fortune involved here — opponents attempted shots worth 0.86 xG per match but scored only 0.35 actual goals per match, and even the best goalkeeper in the world isn’t going to create that large a difference between the two every season.
They were also unsustainably fortunate in attack: Burnley ranked only 19th in xG per shot, and midfielder Josh Brownhill and forward Zian Flemming combined to score 30 goals from shots worth only 19.0 xG. Not even Lionel Messi overachieves his xG figures by 58%. Brownhill had scored a total of 13 goals in five previous seasons with Burnley before knocking in 18 this season.
Still, while their final numbers were likely better than they should have been, there was some undeniable quality here. If defensive solidity is the main source of Premier League survival, Burnley’s ability to keep defenders behind the ball and keep opponents out of the box while still playing with a relatively high defensive line (they were first in the league in offsides drawn) suggests both quality structure and personnel. Center-back Maxime Estève, 22, was one of the best players in the league this season; if they can hold onto him for 2025-26 and Trafford doesn’t regress too far toward the mean, they could produce solid defensive numbers even if they can’t possibly expect to score much.
Hiring Parker last year was extremely logical on Burnley’s part — they’re the third team he’s gotten promoted to the Premier League (after Fulham and Bournemouth) in just the last six seasons. The downside, however, is that his approach really hasn’t worked in the top division. His Fulham were immediately relegated, and his Bournemouth stint ended after a disastrous start in the Premier League. His teams don’t score much in the top division, and his defenses haven’t held up. Maybe both he and Burnley have learned from recent failures?
I’m not going to lie: It’s hard to see Sunderland staying up. Mind you, it’s incredible that they’re back. The subjects of a popular documentary series (“Sunderland ‘Til I Die”) that was basically premised around what it’s like to love a club that has no idea what it’s doing, Sunderland suffered back-to-back relegations in 2017 and 2018 and spent four years in the third division before finding their footing. After finishing 16th in the Championship last year, they bounced up to fourth this term. Despite losing their last five matches of the regular season, they beat Coventry City with a late goal in the promotion playoff semifinal, then beat Sheffield United in stoppage time in Saturday’s playoff final at Wembley. Teenager Tom Watson‘s seeing-eye goal will be remembered for quite a while, even though Watson himself is already bound for Brighton this summer. (Their other excellent teenager, midfielder Jobe Bellingham, is also potentially leaving, likely for a Bundesliga club like Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig or Eintracht Frankfurt.)
On paper, Sunderland weren’t nearly as strong as either Leeds or Burnley. Their attack was above average at best: ninth in goals (1.26 per game), eighth in xG (1.30), 11th in shots per possession, eighth in xG per shot. They hunted for good shots and kept the ball on the ground, but they just actually find all that many great opportunities. They had 35% of their shots blocked (second-most). Even including the playoff, only two Sunderland players, 24-year-old Wilson Isidor and 20-year old Eliezer Mayenda (whose 76th-minute goal against Sheffield United set up Watson for the winner), scored more than five goals.
That said, we’ve learned that quality defense is more likely to translate in the Premier League than quality offense, and Sunderland were better on that side. They allowed only a goal per match (fourth) and forced opponents to take 83% of their shots with at least two defenders between ball and goal (fifth). And while the attack wasn’t phenomenal overall, they utilized exciting and aggressive youngsters and strong ball progression — first in ground duels won, first in take-ons, third in progressive passes, fourth in progressive carries — to counter-attack quite well.
It will be tricky to balance the maintenance and development of a young roster core — even if Bellingham leaves, they’ll still likely have most of Isidor, Mayenda, fullbacks Trai Hume (23) and Dennis Cirkin (23), defensive midfielder and captain Dan Neil (23) and attacking midfielder Chris Rigg (17) — with both circling vultures and the demands of the Premier League. But Sunderland built this core through a busy run of roster moves, and while this is probably meant to be a yo-yo year, manager Regis Le Bris did a phenomenal job, and the bright youngsters and decent defense will allow Sunderland fans to find hope this summer.
