We welcome back US based football fan Kevin De Vries to TEB. Every couple of weeks he will share with us his views on the sport we love. You can hear Kevin host the EPL Roundtable podcast twice a week. Episodes available to download every Monday and Thursday.
Staying up is an incredibly daunting task for newly promoted clubs.
Three new clubs join the Premier League every season and the first question is always ‘can we stay up?’
It is such an easy question but not to answer. I am just as guilty of this as on the EPL Roundtable podcast as I resort to the same rhetoric we hear every year from major media players.
These discussions often circle around club stability, willingness to spend and adapting quickly to the pace of the Premier League. While none of these points are technically incorrect they do leave much to be desired. Even in my introduction to this article, I made staying up seem like some daunting task when in reality two sides have not been relegated in their first year up since 2008 (Birmingham and Derby).
Promoted sides are all unique and try anything to stay up. Blackpool played pressing, attacking football and netted an impressive 55 goals. Crystal Palace on the other hand, stayed up by relying on their stalwart defence conceding just 48 goals. Queens Park Rangers and Cardiff City came up, splashed the cash and promptly returned from whence they came while West Ham United spent less than ten million on their return and finished in the top ten.
The problem is that every decision is either taking you a step closer or a step further from staying in the Premier League. Will your club be the one that achieves safety?
Fortunately, I have come up with three simple ways to know if you will be safe in your first season in the Premier League. It is time for this year’s first edition of … FACT TIME!
Of the recently promoted sides in the last five years;
- Only one team that scored more than 45 goals after being promoted was promptly relegated (Blackpool)
- No club whose top scorer has notched 13+ goals has been relegated
- No team has been relegated while conceding fewer than 70 goals.
Seriously. That is it. To stay up you only need to score 45 goals, have your top scorer net 13 times or concede fewer than 70 goals. You do not need to accomplish all three, if you complete just one you have a 92.6% chance of continuing your Premier League stay. Odds suggest that two of Burnley, Leicester City and Queens Park Rangers will be safe. The only problem with reflective statistics is that they are not so good at predicting future success.
Who do you I think will stay up this year I hear you ask? Well, I suspect it will be whoever is the most stable, willing to spend and can adapt quickly to the pace of the Premier League.
