Well, it’s official. Queens Park Rangers and Burnley are going down.
Sad as I am for them, (and the great guys over at @NoNayNeverNet) both going down has directly disproved my first article of the season where I discussed how teams could stay in the Premier League.
Most of my analysis circled around three main statistics which are quoted below.
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.
So, that has gone poorly.
Historically, if a team accomplishes just one of these goals they have a great chance of staying up so why have two newcomers been relegated this year?
When I started reviewing my first article and realised how impressively wrong I was, I thought maybe the sample size was too small, so instead of just looking at the past five years I thought a decade would shine further light on the topic.
The one statistic that has held true across the board is 45 goals guaranteeing safety, as none of this years promoted sides (Burnley, Leicester City, QPR) were able to reach this benchmark. Leicester are the closest with 41 goals, and understandably still have a chance of staying up. Does this statistic hold up looking back even further?
Let us investigate in this week’s edition of …
FACT TIME!!!
In the past decade of Premier League play:
- We are on pace to see the third fewest goals scored in a season, having scored a total of 915
- Leicester, Burnley and QPR have combined for just 93 goals this season
- This is the fewest of newly promoted sides
Now that we have established that rule, let us see how the others were broken down.
In terms of goals allowed, QPR are the only newly promoted side to be anywhere near conceding 70 goals (67), unless Burnley collapse phenomenally and allow 17 goals in two matches. As that seems unlikely, I think the most likely cause for this is directly related to the amount of total goals scored.
While I do think Burnley and Leicester have done a good job at reigning in opponents, in more goal heavy years I could definitely see either or both having conceded 60+ goals.
One of the trends that has held true over the past ten years, is that no team has been relegated with their top scorer netting 13+ goals. QPR have decided to break this trend with Charlie Austin scoring an impressive 17 goals this season, which considering how little service was given him, is truly astonishing.
QPR failed to capitalise on having the fourth highest scorer in the Premier League and are going down because of it. Burnley also looked to be on pace to eclipse this statistic, but Danny Ings has struggled for goals scoring just once since mid-February. Thanks to Ings’ drop off I am not nearly as wrong as I could have been, but I that is nothing to celebrate.
By my pre-season calculations, all three recently promoted should have been safe for different reasons. QPR had a top scorer, Leicester are in line to score enough goals, and Burnley kept from conceding too many goals. Statistically all three should have been safe, but Burnley and QPR have both hit on a 7.4% chance to go down.
Time will tell if these trends continue but until then, remember that no-one is safe.
