Bottom three agony tells a bigger story

Chris Dunlavy

A FRESH TAKE ON FOOTBALL

PATHETIC. There’s really no other word for the way Leicester played against Newcastle on Monday night. Well, maybe a few. Gutless. Witless. Hapless. Eddie Howe’s side didn’t even need to try. They just waited patiently for Leicester’s players to cough up possession, ambled goalwards and quietly inflicted a 15th defeat in 16 matches. But was anybody surprised?

Since early December, the Foxes have somehow managed to be even worse than Southampton, who pre-weekend were still on course to become the worst Premier League team ever.

Ipswich, at least, have not embarrassed themselves; nobody expected the Tractor Boys to get promoted in the first place.

Nevertheless, they have still come nowhere near staying in the top fight, which means that for the second year in succession, the same three sides who went up are going straight back down.

That has never happened before, but would anyone bet against it happening again? And again, and again?

Gone are the days when Premier League punchbags were novelty acts. Swindon in the early 90s. The infamous Derby side of Billy Davies. Sunderland in various iterations.

Errors

Now, that’s every team, every year. Sheffield United amassed just 16 points last term. Since the start of 2025, Southampton and Leicester have collected theirs at a rate of 0.33 and 0.25 respectively.

Keep that up and, by the end of the season, three of the six lowest Premier League points totals will belong to teams promoted since 2023.

Individual circumstances must be taken into consideration, of course. The current crop have made major errors, from Russell Martin’s suicidal insistence on building from the back at Southampton to Leicester’s star-struck appointment of Ruud van Nistelrooy, a manager so far out of his depth that even armbands and a ducky ring wouldn’t save him.

It is no coincidence idence that Ipswich – a team with an adaptable coach and ent tactics – have made coherthe best fist of staying up.

But three of the six worst points totals? In 32 years? That’s pretty compelling, as is the fact that Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton are almost certain to finish with the worst combined points-per-game e ratio of any three promoted sides.

STRUGGLE: Ruud van Nistelrooy

The inescapable conclusion is that the Premier League is now more of a closed shop than at any time since its inception in 1992.

At a time when the Championship has never spent more on wages, earned more in TV revenue or employed so many international players, the Premier League is pulling away at a faster rate than ever before.

It’s not just the money. It’s how it is spent. Even modest top-flight clubs now have highly-sophisticated scouting and recruitment structures. They rarely buy duds, consistently sell players for a profit, and are so effective at repeating the process that they are elbowing out the division’s traditional aristocrats.

When a club of Manchester United’s vast resources can’t even compete, what hope is there for anyone coming out of the Championship? It’s a division where so much money is spent on wages that there’s barely enough left to pay the pieman, let alone a South American scouting network.

Brighton, Bournemouth and the rest of the Premier League’s nouveau riche middle class should not be criticised for putting their money to good use.

Yet the fate of Leicester and Southampton, and their embarrassing inability to compete, is perhaps the clearest indication yet that financial redistribution is essential. Otherwise, promotion will no longer be a chance to dream of a brighter future. It will merely be the precursor to a year of hidings, and the first step towards inevitable relegation.