What Leeds, Sunderland and Burnley learned from last year’s Rotten Three

Say it quietly but the promoted teams may not be doomed to relegation this season.

With 6/6 heading back down the previous two campaigns, the newly promoted teams having their hair ruffled and then being sent back down to a parachute-payment-fuelled landing in the Championship looked to be the new normal. But this season has already suggested that things could be different.

Sunderland sit in seventh while Leeds and Burnley are both outside of the relegation zone and the Black Cats in particular have been an example of how to stay up in an increasingly unbalanced division.

Spend big (and smartly) in the summer, especially if you’re the play-off winner

The 24-point gap between Sunderland and the automatically promoted sides Leeds and Burnley was bigger than the two previous seasons combined, demonstrating just how much further back they were starting in terms of squad quality.

While Leeds spent roughly £99m and Burnley spent £112m, the Black Cats – led by heir to a global commodity trading empire Kyril Louis-Dreyfus – were the ninth biggest spenders in the Premier League.

They spent smartly too and rather than spending big on a well-known hasbeen, they have bought players that improve the squad quality and will crucially give them a good platform should they go down.

For experience, they brought in Granit Xhaka – an upgrade on the originally linked Jordan Henderson – and even when they lost Marc Guiu back to Chelsea, they acted quickly to go and sign Ajax’s number 9 Brian Brobbey.

The quality gap between the Premier League and the Championship is only getting bigger and total revamps are becoming a must of any newly promoted squads.

Defence, Defence, Defence

Our American cousins like to say ‘defence wins championships’, but on this side of the pond, defence keeps you out of the Championship.

Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton were the top scorers in the Championship when they went up but in the case of Ipswich and Southampton, they also shipped a fair number of goals too.

That attack-first approach is necessary to get promoted from the second division but it can then be hard to transform into a side able to stay in the Premier League, where other teams simply have better attackers.

Leicester conceded 80 goals last year, Ipswich 82 and Southampton 86 while the next worst was Wolves on 69.

While scoring goals is certainly one problem to solve, keeping them out is arguably even more important.

So far this year, the promoted teams have not been the whipping boys everyone expected and Sunderland in particular have been defensively solid, conceding just four goals.

After the same number of games last year, Ipswich and Leicester had let in eight, while Southampton had shipped nine.

It is an area that both Burnley and Leeds will need to focus on with eight and seven goals conceded respectively.

Find a way to score and take your chances

It’s an obvious one to say but when you do create a chance – take it.

Sunderland’s xG so far this campaign is 4.5 and they have scored six goals; Southampton last year had an xG of 33.2 and only scored 26.

The Premier League is not the kind of league where chances will be delivered to you over and over, so if a promoted side has any ambition of staying up, not only do they have to take their chances, they have to be willing to move away from their preferred style to score goals.

Ipswich in particular were guilty of trying to score the perfect goal and got stuck on the edge of opposition penalty areas. Their most effective moves came on the counter where they either utilised the wingers or launched it to Liam Delap, who could control it and run at defences.

Corners and long throws are very much back ‘in’ at the moment and these situations can often level the playing field when it comes to the individual talent of each player.

Pray to the football fixtures gods

When Ipswich returned to the top flight after 20 years away, they were greeted with the visit of Liverpool on the opening day before an away trip to the Etihad.

Now while some like to say it does not matter when you face certain opponents, it absolutely does, and Sunderland’s start this year is testament to that.

A home game against West Ham gave them a confidence-boosting 3-0 win to start the year and, even if they should have done better against their fellow promoted side Burnley in the second game, they then won at home to Brentford who are getting to grips with a new manager.

That plus draws against Palace and Sunderland have put Sunderland seventh and with a huge load of confidence for what’s to come.

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Hope there are three worse teams than you

Another element of luck outside of your control is the fortunes of those around you.

Last season there were 17 comfortable teams in the division with no major crisis to be seen; this season brings a different story.

West Ham, who were poor last season but never really got pulled into a relegation scrap, are now circling the drain, while Wolves have yet to score a point.

Aston Villa are a side that you expect to eventually find their feet but the longer their poor run goes on, the more times the promoted teams have to build a buffer.

Nottingham Forest are also ones to watch given their managerial changes, while Brentford have a new and inexperienced man at the helm.

That’s a whole lot more competition for those three doomed places.

Get lucky

The final variable promoted sides and fans have to hope for is simply that luck is on your side. Being promoted puts you in a position where the cards are stacked against you; every club you face has more money, more experience in this division and a better chance on paper of survival.

While there are some things you can control, there’s also a huge number of variables in football that make predictions foolish.

Referee decisions, injuries, freak goals – there is a long list of moments that can define a season and promoted clubs just have to hope they are on the right end of those more often than not.

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