By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-08-13 11:46:59 | Updated at 2026-08-13 14:55:48
4 hours ago
Leeds United and Sunderland bucked the trend of promoted teams being relegated from the Premier League last season. That said, it came just a year after two consecutive seasons where all three newcomers went straight back down. What lessons can Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City learn from their performances?
After two consecutive seasons in which all three promoted teams were immediately relegated, Sunderland and Leeds United reminded us that a trend should not necessarily be treated as a rule.
Sunderland finished seventh in the Premier League, the joint-best finish for a promoted side since Wolves in 2018-19. Their 54 points was the most by a promoted team since Leeds United collected 59 in 2020-21.
Leeds, meanwhile, finished 14th in 2025-26, a comfortable eight points clear of the relegation zone.
Burnley were the only promoted team to drop straight back into the Championship. That meant 2025-26 was just the second season in the last six in which one or fewer promoted sides were relegated. The two seasons prior to 2025-26 saw all six promoted clubs come up and then drop straight back down.
This season, it’s Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City who will attempt to beat the odds and survive.
But what exactly will they need to do to buck the trend? And what lessons can they learn from previous promoted sides who successfully navigated their first season in the Premier League?
Make a Good Start
In other news, water is wet. But hear us out.
In 34 Premier League seasons, none of the 16 promoted teams who won at least eight points from their opening five games have gone straight back down.
Sunderland last season were one of those sides, picking up exactly eight points after five matches. Leeds had seven, and both ended the campaign comfortably clear of trouble.
Historically speaking, seven points after five matches is also a pretty safe threshold. Of the 29 promoted teams to have earned at least seven points from their first five matches, only four have subsequently been relegated, a rate of 13.7%.
Drop below that, though, and the warning signs start flashing.
Overall, 14 promoted sides have taken exactly six points from their opening five games. Ten of them went down, or 71.4%.
The fewest points collected across the first five matches by a promoted team who ultimately survived is three, achieved by West Bromwich Albion in 2004-05, Southampton in 2012-13 and Crystal Palace in 2013-14.
That might offer any struggling teams some hope, but relying on those outliers as a crutch is probably not the wisest. Teams collecting three points or fewer from their opening five games have been relegated 88% of the time, with 22 of the 25 such sides going down.
In terms of the difficulty of each promoted team’s opening five fixtures, it could hardly get much tougher for Coventry.
Their opponents have an average Opta Power Rating of 94.5, tied with Sunderland for the hardest start to the season. Having to face Arsenal and Manchester City away from home will do that.
Hull don’t have a particularly kind opening run either, with Manchester United, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Newcastle United among their first five opponents.
Ipswich have a slightly more favourable run, with their start ranked as the ninth easiest.
Their first fixture, at home to Sunderland, looks particularly important, while trips to Crystal Palace and Everton could provide further opportunities to reach that seven-point benchmark.
The Magic ‘40 Points’ Mark?
Another supposed truism is the idea that 40 points is needed to survive. For anyone worried about relegation, the aim is reaching that magic 40-point mark to secure your top-flight status. Anything else is a bonus
Look back through Premier League history, though, and it becomes clear that 40 points is very rarely needed.
Across the previous 22 completed seasons, there have been just two occasions when the team finishing in the final relegation place has earned as many as 39 points: Birmingham City in 2010-11 and West Ham last season.
In other words, they are the only two occasions in more than two decades when 40 points was actually needed to guarantee survival.
Over that period, the average points tally for the team finishing 18th has been 33.8. So, for the most part, around 34-35 points has been enough to stay up on average.
That average is skewed somewhat by some very low points totals from three of the seven teams to finish in 18th: Fulham (28) in 2020-21, Luton (26) in 2023-24 and Leicester (25) in 2024-25. In each of those seasons, 34 points, let alone 40, would have been more than enough to avoid relegation.
Thirty-four points is an average, though, rather than a concrete mark.
If you want a more reliable target, 38 points is a useful benchmark. Last season was the first in 15 campaigns in which 38 points was not enough to survive, with West Ham relegated despite collecting 39.
In each of the previous 14 seasons, 38 points would have been sufficient.
Make Your Home a Fortress
If you’re looking for another magic number, 30 home points appears to be the one. No team in a 38-game season has ever been relegated from the Premier League after winning at least 30 points at home.
Strong home form was fundamental to Sunderland and Leeds’ survival last season. Both surpassed the 30-point mark, collecting 33 and 32 home points respectively. Sunderland had the eighth-best home record in the division, while Daniel Farke’s Leeds were 10th.
The contrast with Burnley was quite telling. The Clarets collected just 13 points at Turf Moor, leaving them bottom of the home table.
That is not to say that you can’t survive without strong home form, though. Hull City stayed up in 2008-09 despite winning only 14 points on home soil, largely thanks to their 21 points away from home.
But aside from Hull, no promoted team has ever survived a Premier League season after collecting fewer than 20 points from their 19 home games.
Coventry and Ipswich, who went up automatically, had the two best home records in the Championship last season, collecting 55 and 50 points respectively.
Hull’s record was less impressive, with 38 points ranking them eighth in the division.
Rampant on the Road
If home comforts aren’t your thing, you’ll have to double your efforts on the road, like Hull.
Winning at least 23 points away from home should be enough to keep you up. The most away points ever earned by a relegated team in a 38-game Premier League season is 22, by Crystal Palace in 1997-98.
In fact, 20 away points should generally put you in a strong position. Twenty-five promoted sides have earned at least that many away points in a Premier League season, and only two of them were relegated: Crystal Palace in 1994-95 and again in 1997-98.
Looking at last season’s Championship, it was actually Millwall who had the division’s best away record, collecting 41 points, one more than Coventry.
Hull and Ipswich were not far behind, with 35 and 34 away points respectively, ranking sixth and seventh.
Find a Goalscorer
In theory, finding a consistent goalscorer should give a promoted team a great chance of survival.
Only six teams have ever been relegated from the Premier League despite having a player score more than 14 goals in that season.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored 14 goals for Leeds last season, accounting for 29% of their 49. Only six other players contributed a higher proportion of their team’s goals last campaign.
All three promoted clubs had players who reached the 15-goal mark in the Championship last season, albeit over more matches than in the Premier League.
Haji Wright scored 17 for Coventry; Oli McBurnie hit 17 for Hull; Jack Clarke scored 16 for Ipswich.
There are also new attacking options arriving at the clubs. Ipswich brought in Brazilian forward Emersonn from Toulouse for a reported £24 million, although he scored just six goals in 28 Ligue 1 appearances last season.
McBurnie, meanwhile, will be hoping to translate his Championship goalscoring form to the Premier League more successfully this time around. He has scored just 13 goals in 96 Premier League appearances across spells with Swansea City and Sheffield United, with six goals his best return in a single season.
His record in the Championship is a lot better, scoring 62 goals in 165 appearances. That’s 0.38 goals per game in the second tier compared to 0.14 in the Premier League.
As a team, scoring more than 50 goals should also put a promoted side in a strong position.
In a 38-game Premier League season, only two promoted teams have scored more than 50 goals and still been relegated. Blackpool hold the record, going down despite scoring 55 goals in 2010-11; conceding 78 goals didn’t help.
Their 55 goals remains the most scored by any relegated team in Premier League history.
At the other end of the spectrum, Huddersfield Town in 2017-18 hold the record for fewest goals scored by a promoted side who eventually survived. They scored just 28 times, yet somehow stayed up.
Keep It Tight
If scoring goals is one side of the equation, what about stopping them?
Bournemouth in 2022-23 and West Bromwich Albion in 2010-11 share the record for most goals conceded by a promoted side who still survived. Both shipped 71 but stayed up with room to spare.
They remain the exceptions rather than the rule, though. They are the only two promoted teams to concede 69 or more goals in a season and avoid relegation.
Interestingly, 68 goals appears to be the tipping point. Of the 68 promoted teams to concede 68 goals or fewer, only 16 were relegated, or 24.2%.
By contrast, 33 promoted sides have conceded at least 69 goals. Thirty-one of them went down at an alarming rate of 93.9%.
In other words, the target is to concede 68 goals or fewer, equivalent to 1.79 goals per game or fewer. Indeed, preferably fewer.
Ipswich might be best equipped to achieve that. They conceded just 1.0 expected goals per game in the Championship last season, the second-best defensive record in the division.
Coventry were not far behind at 1.1 xG against per game.
It looks like being a much tougher ask for Hull, who conceded chances worth 1.7 xG per game. That was the second-worst record in the division, ahead of only relegated Sheffield Wednesday.
And that broadly ties with the consensus heading into the new season, that Hull appear likely to face the toughest battle for survival, while Coventry and Ipswich may have slightly better chances of staying up.
Survival is still a very tall order, though, with the Premier League arguably more competitive than it has ever been. All the promoted sides need to do is score plenty of goals, keep it tight at the back and win plenty of points. Simple, right?
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