Predicting the EPL’s Relegated Teams For 2024

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John
June 5, 2023
News Reviews

The 2022/2023 season was the longest in the history of the English Premier League, commencing last July and ending in late May because of the delay caused by the Qatar World Cup. After experiencing so much football for such a long time, some fans might be hoping for a break from football coverage. We have only one word to say to those fans- “Tough.” As soon as one season ends, thoughts turn to the next one – and what a season we appear to have in store.

While you’ll read plenty of articles predicting who will win next season’s Premier League title (spoiler: it’ll be Manchester City again), we want to do something different. We want to try to work out who’ll be going down from the Premier League rather than who’ll be lifting the trophy. Working out who’s likely to be taking the deadly drop to the Championship is always harder than predicting who’ll be battling it out at the top end of the table, but we’re not afraid of the task – so let’s give it a go.

Luton Town

Sorry, Hatters fans. We know you’ve waited thirty years to make it back to the top flight, but you’re not likely to survive. For those who don’t know, Luton Town won “the richest game in football” when they beat Coventry City in the play-off final to win promotion to the Premier League. It’s football’s equivalent of winning the jackpot at a casino – which is a pertinent point, as the sort of sponsorship opportunities that were open to Luton’s predecessors aren’t available to Luton. The Premier League has decided to ban gambling and casino sponsorships, so you won’t see the name of any casino sister sites splashed across Luton’s kits next season. It’s been a lucrative avenue for many a club and many a season, but the Premier League’s casino connection is officially closed for business.

Luton Town is the smallest club ever to play in the English Premier League. As a professional football operation, the club is smaller than Blackpool, Barnsley, Swindon Town, or any of the other minnows who’ve had temporary stays in the top flight during the Premier League years. The entrance to their away stand is via an old terrace house in Kenilworth Road, which is such a bizarre arrangement that we’re surprised it’s compliant with FA rules, let alone Premier League rules. A combination of too little money, too small a playing squad and, in Rob Edwards, a coach who’s never managed in the Premier League before, is too large a set of obstacles to overcome. Luton Town will likely not only be relegated but finish rock bottom.

Sheffield United

We know it’s a cliche to predict more than one of the newly-promoted teams to go straight back down from the Premier League, but the reason it’s become a cliche is because it’s so often true. The gulf in class between the Premier League and the Championship is so enormous that almost every club struggles to bridge it. As hard as The Blades have fought to bring Premier League football back to Bramall Lane, sealing promotion the automatic way after beating West Brom, their stay is likely to be a short one. Even Sheffield United fans are probably expecting that; it’s not like they’ve never been promoted to the top flight only to be quickly relegated again before. In fact, you could say it’s become an occupational hazard for them. The club seems to be too good for the Championship but never quite good enough for the Premier League.

We’re not as positive that The Blades will be relegated as we are that Luton Town will be going down, but we’d still be very surprised to see them survive. Paul Heckingbottom is another coach with no Premier League experience, and Sheffield United’s playing squad is still full of players who weren’t good enough last time the team was in the division. Oli McBurnie is no more likely to fire The Blades to survival this time than he was last time – and with no disrespect intended to Billy Sharp, if he’s forced to lead the line at Bramall Lane for much longer, he’s going to have to be supplied with a zimmer frame to do it with.

Nottingham Forest

The great escape pulled off by Steve Cooper and his Nottingham Forest team last season was a fantastic story. We’d go so far as to say that it’s a story destined never to be repeated – by which we mean that Nottingham Forest won’t be able to pull off the same escape next time around. As heartwarming as it was to see how much Premier League meant to Cooper and his players, you’d be hard-pressed to say that Forest’s survival ultimately had more to do with Forest being good than it did with Leeds, Leicester City and Southampton being awful.

Forest’s fundamental problems haven’t gone away – the playing squad at the City Ground is far too big, and it’s disjointed. The club won’t make the same mistake as it did last season – there won’t be twenty new arrivals in Nottingham over the summer – but the fact that there likely aren’t any significant reinforcements coming means that Cooper is going to be stuck with the same players at his disposal next time – and they’re the same players who escaped the drop by the skins of their teeth. A recently promoted club’s second season in the Premier League always tends to be difficult, and we have a horrible feeling Nottingham Forest fans are about to find that out.

Could someone else go down in place of either Nottingham Forest or Sheffield United? It’s always possible. Everton might confound us all by managing to put together yet another horror show of a season. Crystal Palace might get their chosen replacement for Roy Hodgson wrong for a second time and pay a higher price for it. Given the form they finished the season in, we can’t even totally rule out the idea of Chelsea going down. We’re realists, though, and we think Luton, Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest are the realistic choices. Your opinion may differ – but that’s always the joy of football debates!