Ranking Leicester, Southampton and Ipswich from most to least likely to survive
Having just seen all three promoted teams head straight back from the Premier League to the Championship last season, top-flight new boys Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton will be keenly aware that the gap between the top two divisions is an absolute gulf these days.
Do they have a shot at staying up? We watched each of the newly-promoted sides both on TV and in person multiple times last season, and here’s how we rate their chances, from most to least likely to survive the drop…but honestly it would be refreshing to be wrong on all three.
Leicester City: It’s a cigarette paper between them and Southampton, so hold your invective, Saints fans.
The main factors behind our thinking are that 1) Leicester were simply better than Southampton over the course of last season, hence they went up automatically rather than needing the play-offs; and 2) although they’ve lost manager Enzo Maresca to Chelsea, they have appointed a manager with equally expansive ideas to Russell Martin, but who also has experience making the compromises required to keep a newly-promoted side in the Premier League.
Yes, they need to replace some of the key players they lost following their relegation, as well as influential midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who has also departed for Stamford Bridge; but they were also less dependent on loan players to earn their promotion than Southampton.
We dare say that Steve Cooper will get a firmer say on what recruitment he wants at the King Power Stadium than he had to put up with at scattergun Nottingham Forest, too, and should have the clearest idea of the three managers what mistakes the club need to avoid.
Crucially, Leicester had the best defensive record in the Championship last season, conceding less than two-thirds the goals shipped by a somewhat leakier Southampton side.
That does not always translate into the Premier League, as we know from recent experience, but it’s as much evidence as we have to go on that Leicester may be the best-placed of the three to stay up.
We’re not daft enough to fall for Leicester like we did for Burnley, though.
Southampton: We really, really like Russell Martin and we really really like his football, but…they did concede a lot of goals last season, and for long phases of the campaign were reliant on late goals to get the job done.
That worries us about them in the Premier League, where the fitness level is so much higher and the opportunities to grind down the opposition Rocky Balboa style are altogether more limited. We’re also not sure how far Martin is willing to compromise his style to suit the different demands of the Premier League.
And actually, as Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds showed in their first season in the Premier League, that might not be any bad thing: despite placing them behind Leicester here, if we had to bet on any of the three to achieve a surprise top-half finish, it would be Southampton, not Leicester.
But it could all too easily go the way of Vincent Kompany’s Burnley if Southampton aren’t careful. Dropping out of the automatic promotion race should be a warning sign to them that their ‘you score two, we’ll score three’ style, while a lot of fun to watch in the Championship, can quickly turn into ‘we score one, you’ll score four’ in the Premier League.
Ipswich Town: Again, we are quick to express our admiration for Ipswich on the incredible and rare feat of pulling off back-to-back promotions.
For those who didn’t follow the Championship closely, Ipswich’s promotion was not a fluke. There’s always a team that starts well and then drops away, or occasionally an on-paper so-so side that catches a massive wave of momentum that takes them all the way to the finish line.
Not so with Ipswich. Their underlying numbers were excellent from the start, up there in Leicester and Burnley territory, and they were able to stay up there to help turn a three-horse race for second place into a three-horse race for first after Leicester suffered a springtime stumble in form.
Our main issue? Ipswich won so, so many of their points from losing positions last season – 32 of their 96 in total – which speaks highly of the character of their squad and manager Kieran McKenna’s ability to make decisive changes.
But that positive could quickly become a negative. As with Southampton leaving things late – a habit Ipswich shared, but even more so – most Premier League sides are far less forgiving after taking a lead…or if their opposition are not set up right from the beginning, which Ipswich’s record suggests they may not have been.