Which Promoted Team Has the Best Chance of Staying in the Premier League?
The dust has settled on another turbulent Championship season, and the Premier League is ready to welcome three new teams into the fold.
However, Norwich City, Watford and champions Bournemouth should be trepidacious as well as excited; in the 22 seasons since the Premier League began and the financial gap between the first and second tiers of English football began to yawn, there have been only two years in which all three promoted teams survived.
Here, we’ll analyse which of the three teams is most likely to survive the rigours of a 38-game season against some of the biggest names in world football. Using the criteria of attack, defence, form—including past Premier League appearances—and managers, we’ll measure the three teams against each other to determine which has the best chance of beating the drop.
The clubs are not only being judged on their performance against each other and other Championship clubs in the season just passed but on their potential to compete against Premier League opposition.
All stats have been taken from Statto and refer to the regular Championship season unless otherwise stated.
Attack
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Bournemouth goals scored: 98
Watford goals scored: 91
Norwich goals scored: 88
Fittingly, the three best goalscoring teams in the division were all eventually promoted. However, if there’s one truism of promoted sides in the Premier League, it’s that even the most prolific strike rates in the Championship rarely translate to the top flight.
This tends to be a net result of two equally troublesome factors. Firstly, Premier League defences are so much more well-drilled and talented on an individual basis that they’re much harder to break through.
Second can be an over-reliance on individual strikers to get goals. Burnley this season in the Premier League offered a telling example. They scored a respectable 72 goals on their way to the second automatic promotion spot in 2013/14, but a combined 42 of these were scored by their strike partnership of Danny Ings and Sam Vokes.
While Ings was able to continue finding the net in the top flight, Vokes failed to score once, creating a shortfall that the club were unable to bridge.
However, this does work both ways. Queen Park Rangers' Charlie Austin scored 19 goals in the 2013/14 Championship season (including the play-offs) and 18 in the Premier League, demonstrating that the right striker can offset the increase in defensive quality.
Hearteningly for the promoted teams, rarely has the Championship produced three teams so clinical in front of goal. In fact, Reading in the 2005/06 season and Newcastle United in 2009/10 are the only other teams in the 10-year history of the Championship to have broken the 90-goal mark. Reading won the league again in 2011/12 despite scoring just 69 goals.
Much will hinge on how their most productive players in front of goal adapt to the Premier League. Bournemouth had four players break into double figures, with only Matt Ritchie having played in the English top division before, his two goalless appearances for Portsmouth back in 2009/10. They will be relying on Callum Wilson making the step up and 33-year old Yann Kermorgant’s experience.
Watford have more cause for concern. Only three of their players broke past the 10-goal mark, one of whom was Matej Vydra, who completely failed to adapt to life in the Premier League last season with West Brom, scoring just three times in 23 appearances for the Midlands club.
The Hornets will be hoping the Czech marksman has learned his lesson. Top scorer Troy Deeney is another the club simply cannot afford to have a lengthy adjustment period.
Norwich have the most experience of the Premier League within their strikers, but their major concern will be top scorer Cameron Jerome. Now 28 and in his prime, Jerome has plenty of Premier League pedigree but has never been able to find his feet in the division.
Manager Alex Neil faces a tough decision over the summer whether to keep faith with the striker or seek to sign a replacement, despite his goals last term.
Defence
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Bournemouth goals conceded: 45
Watford goals conceded: 50
Norwich goals conceded: 48
Just like a team’s attack, how a defence will cope with the step up in quality of Premier League strikers is extremely difficult to judge. Sunderland and Derby County were both promoted in the 2006/07 season, having conceded 47 and 46 goals respectively.
The next season Sunderland conceded 59 and survived; Derby conceded a record 89 and set the record for the lowest points tally in Premier League history.
Norwich’s defensive unit has the most Premier League experience between them, having remained largely unchanged since their relegation two seasons ago. That year, they conceded 62, by no means an insurmountable amount had their strike rate been better.
Bournemouth and Watford are both venturing into the unknown for the most part. Watford’s brand of attacking football and their 3-5-2 formation may put them at risk more than Bournemouth’s more traditional 4-4-2, but that could all change depending on the manager the club bring in to replace Slavisa Jokanovic should he leave.
Form
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Bournemouth and Watford were fantastically consistent across the entire season, rarely leaving the upper reaches of the table. Norwich may have required the play-offs to achieve promotion, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Since Alex Neil’s arrival as manager, the club have been the best side in the division, with average points per game of 2.23, in comparison to Watford’s 2.18 and Bournemouth’s 1.91.
Previous Premier League experience is always a boon when it comes to surviving. Bournemouth have never played in the top flight in their 125-year history, and while the enthusiasm of reaching the promised land will undoubtedly give them some extra impetus through the early stages of the season, that may quickly evaporate should they find themselves struggling.
Watford have two Premier League stints under their belts, although neither has been particularly happy. In both 2000/01 and 2006/07, they finished bottom, setting what was at the time the record for the lowest points total in the latter season. The club is a substantially different entity to the one that has slumped in the past, having been bought by the Pozzo family, who also own Udinese, in 2012.
As with the current squads, Norwich have the most experience in the top flight. The club were founding members of the Premier League, finishing third in the inaugural season before being relegated in 1994/95. A solitary season in 2004/05 was followed by a three-year stay between 2011 and 2014.
Managers
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Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich all find themselves in extremely different managerial situations, and it will be fascinating to see which club prospers.
Eddie Howe was a bona-fide Bournemouth legend before he even became manager, but what he has achieved with the club in his two spells in charge has been little short of miraculous.
His first act as manager was to rescue the club from the League Two relegation zone, despite being 17 points from safety, and he then guided them to three promotions. What he perhaps lacks in experience he more than makes up for in his affinity to the club, and perhaps the biggest danger—particularly if the Cherries make a good start to life at the top—is him being poached by a bigger club.
Watford find themselves in a state of limbo, with Slavisa Jokanovic—the club’s fourth manager last season—looking to be leaving the club. While many sides would be in crisis at the thought of losing the man who got them promoted, the admirable way that the players stuck to the task throughout the turmoil during the start of last season will give their supporters heart.
Quique Sanchez Flores is in line to take over, per the Daily Mail, and the Spaniard would fit with the Pozzo family’s desire for attacking football, although his career has stalled somewhat in recent years.
Finally, Alex Neil has already started turning heads despite having only managed in England since January. Norwich’s form under him has been scintillating, to the point where the Norwich fans have christened him “Sir Alex” in reference to the legendary Manchester United boss.
Like Howe, perhaps the biggest concern regarding Neil is not what he can do but what the club would do without him should a bigger team come calling.
Verdict
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Most likely to survive: Norwich
Most likely to go down: Watford
Norwich’s combination of Premier League experience and the startling early success of Alex Neil will stand them in excellent stead to beat the drop. The players will take heart from the fact they were able to bounce back immediately following relegation, and this will allow them to play without as much fear as Bournemouth or Watford. The only question mark is over whether Neil will stick or twist with his strikers.
Bournemouth are extremely difficult to gauge. With very little Premier League experience in the squad, manager and as a club historically, they’re very much an unknown entity. However, with Howe in charge and an exciting core of players, as well as strong financial backing, safety is certainly a possibility.
Watford survived managerial turmoil last season, but it’s difficult to see them getting such an easy ride this time if Jokanovic is to go. Their previous Premier League excursions have been poor, and while they’re likely to put up more of a fight this season, inexperience in the squad and a reliance on the goals of the untested Troy Deeney may prove too much for the Hornets.
