How Difficult Is It To Bounce Straight Back From Premier League Relegation?

Embed from Getty Images

Since the initiation of the Premier League in 1992, 76 clubs have been relegated from the Premier League and 21 have come straight back up the following season.

With Newcastle achieving the feat last season, the trend of around one in three clubs doing so continued and you could possibly argue that Rafa Benitez didn’t quite get the credit he deserved for taking Newcastle back up automatically.

Benitez managed to keep the majority of the relegated squad together, save the departure of Moussa Sissoko to Spurs and added proven Championship quality in Matt Ritchie to the ranks, who has also shown that he is capable of being competitive in the Premier League with Bournemouth.

De Paris jusqu’à Tottenham avec mon @richelieuparis1585 ✌????

A post shared by Moussa Sissoko (@moussasissokoofficiel) on

For recently relegated giants such as Sunderland , the stats show that it’s becoming increasingly harder to adapt to life in the Championship for relegated Premier league teams and with the Tyne and Wear club 150/1 to achieve promotion with most championship betting firms, this only further serves to show the difficulty of getting out of the league.

With Newcastle last year becoming only the second club to achieve automatic promotion in the last 7 years alongside Sean Dyche’s Burnley in the 2015/2016 season. If you include teams that come up via the play-offs however, the stats for relegated clubs look a little more promising, with five of the twelve relegated clubs in the last four years achieving promotion.

With that being said, the playoffs are an undoubted lottery and in a series of three one-off games, there are plenty of examples of upsets and shocks to scare managers off the prospect of extending their season by another couple of weeks.

What are your thoughts on Simon Grayson! ???? ???? #safc

A post shared by Sunderland afc fanpage ????⚪????⚪ (@safc.till.i.die) on

Of course, it wouldn’t be prudent to talk about relegation from the Premier League without mentioning the parachute payments paid to the clubs in question.

These are designed to soften the blow of relegation and act as a stop-gap for teams who are missing out on the lucrative financial TV deals which are associated with the Premier League – BT Sports and Sky Sports have recently agreed a £5.1 billion venture to broadcast live games between 2016 and 2019, with oversees investment only further adding to that figure.

Under the new parachute payments system, clubs will receive approximately £87m over the course of three years as opposed to the four that clubs received before the new scheme but with a club’s best players often departing after relegation from the Premier League, assembling a squad capable of being competitive in the Championship is a delicate balancing act.

If your club is relegated from the Premier League then you need to pray that you achieve promotion as quickly as possible, as the stats show that it only gets harder the more time you ‘waste’ in the second tier.

What’s more, fans of clubs who have cemented their status as established Premier League teams should also realise that this is an impressive feat in itself and should enjoy the ride whilst it lasts because you never know what’s lurking round the corner (think Leeds, Portsmouth and Bradford!)

All in all, the Premier League is the place to be and it’s no surprise that clubs are spending more money than ever in a bid to retain their Premier League status, with clubs such as Huddersfield and Brighton really splashing the cash over the Summer.