Premier League Lambs to the Slaughter
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Winning promotion is one of the most exciting and wonderful things a football fan can experience. The Premier League has managed to take the gloss off the experience by ensuring that a season of misery is probably waiting for you on the other side. This was not always the case.
Whether a promoted team enjoyed an easy romp to the league title or a nail-biting fight to the finish, these days they will often find themselves hopelessly out gunned when they kick off their first Premier League season.
I’ve broken the recent past into two groups - the Premier League seasons (15 seasons) and the 18 seasons before that (which takes us back to the 74-75 season, when 3-up/3-down was introduced).
It was once an common occurrence to find all three promoted teams beating the drop. In fact, it used to happen 50% of the time. Since the Premier League was formed, it has only happened once (7%). In fact, 50% of the time a promoted team now finishes dead last. This is illustrated in the chart below.
In the years before the Premier League, there was only a 20% chance of your newly promoted teams getting relegated. In the Premier League, that number has jumped to 44%.
We saw in a recent post how the excitement at the top of the league has been eroded since the Premier League was established. Now we see another group of teams will have a fairly predictable path through the season. If you’re feeling a little less-than-passionate about football these days, I’d suggest this pre-ordination of who will finish where is a significant factor.