This season, the most compelling Premier League action has occurred at the top of the table as Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City fight it out for the title.
By contrast, the relegation battle has been relatively tame. Huddersfield and Fulham were confirmed for the drop several weeks before the end of the season and last weekend, with one round of fixtures to go, Cardiff City joined them, following their defeat against Crystal Palace.
That is relatively unusual. The financial rewards that go with staying in the Premier League, combined with the concentration of talent among the top clubs usually produces a ferocious scrap at the bottom of the table as the previous season’s promoted sides battle desperately to cling on against perennial relegation contenders, with a point here or a goal there often making the difference.
That is the fate awaiting the latest team to be promoted as champions from the second-tier next season. In August, Norwich fans will be able to tune in to BT Sport and watch their heroes take on the best in England, but they face a tough task in their first season back.
The Canaries have been here before. They played in the first three seasons of the Premier League, between 1992 and 1995, and had another three-year stint in the top flight between 2011 and 2014. They also spent one-off seasons in the Premier League in 2004-05 and 2015-16. But they have never been able to secure a firm foothold in the league. Even when they earned Premier League promotion through winning the First Division in 2004, they were relegated twelve months later.
And when bookmakers price up the relegation markets for next season, it is likely that Norwich will be among the favourites for the drop, alongside fellow promoted side Sheffield Wednesday and whichever team emerges from the Championship play-offs.
But recent seasons do provide some hope for Norwich. Leicester City famously won the Premier League in 2015/16, two years after earning promotion, and this season, Wolverhampton Wanderers have secured seventh spot and Europa League football at the first attempt, following Burnley’s similar feats in finishing seventh in their second season after promotion in 2018.
In fact, the record of promoted teams isn’t as bad as some pundits would have you believe. In the past ten seasons, of the 30 teams promoted from the Championship, only 11 have been relegated in the following year, which means promoted teams have a 65 percent survival rate. The record for Championship winners is even better. Eight of the last Championship winners avoided relegation from the Premier League in the following season, while each of the last five teams to win the Championship have gone on to established themselves in the top flight.
All of which suggests that Daniel Farke’s resilient Norwich side have a good chance of surviving in the Premier League next term, and Norwich fans who check out the Bigbetbookmakers site for the best odds on their team avoiding relegation might well be on to a winner.
