One of the biggest jumps that any football club can make is the move from the Championship to the Premier League and, historically speaking, it has been a mixed bag. In some instances, some clubs have defied the odds and stayed up with vigour and class. In others, they’ve ended up going straight back down. Here are some of the most interesting examples.
One of those sides that went straight up and then came back down again was Derby County whose 2007/08 venture into the top flight ended in disaster. Having failed to win the first five games of their season with four consecutive defeats, despite winning 1-0 over Newcastle in the following match, Derby’s season was in tatters. This with the fact that there was a saga where the club went through two chairmen and two managers in the same year ultimately meant that Derby suffered the earliest ever relegation from the Premier League and in the process picked up the division’s lowest ever points total. They had ten, gaining one league win all season.
Since that disastrous 2007/08 season, Derby have remained in the Championship and look to be in a much better position than they were fourteen years ago. Using associated odds from the Championship betting with Betfair for instance, it’s possible to glean that the club are 19/1 to get promoted back to England’s top flight, although are arguably better placed to just survive in the Championship with their odds of 3/1 to avoid relegation offering them a platform to build on for next season and kick things up to the next level.
The same thing can be seen to have occurred with Fulham. They have yo-yoed between England’s first and second tiers for the last few years, even going as far as spending over £100m on signing the likes of Jean Michael Seri and Alfie Mawson for £20 million. But even the money spent couldn’t keep the West London side in the top division.
In more recent times, however, clubs such as Sheffield United have, on their return to the top flight, defied the odds and surprised the critics. In their first Premier League season in twelve years, namely 2019/20, Chris Wilder’s men were as high as the Europa League places at one point. They were tipped to finish in those places by many for a time but ended up finishing in 9th place. Still, this silenced a lot of fans and pundits alike. The same can be said to have occurred with West Bromwich Albion who, following their return to the top division in 2011 finished in 11th place and then had top-half finishes in both 2011/12 under Roy Hodgson and 2016/17 under Tony Pulis, even getting as high as eighth place in 2012/13 under the premiership of Steve Clarke.
It’s certainly fair to say that promoted sides from the Championship to the Premier League can end up in a multitude of positions. This has often caused their respective fates to become some of the most interesting tales of any given season and can lead to some tales going down in football folklore.