Just how hard is the Premier League relegation bounce-back?

Southampton are gone already. Leicester City and Leeds United are on the cusp of following them, while Everton need a final-game win to be sure of staying up.

With only the season’s final round of action to come tomorrow (Sunday), we are about to learn which three clubs will experience the sharp drop down from the 2022-23 Premier League into the Championship.

After relegation from the top flight, hope still lingers. Get rid of what are clearly the wrong players, sign the right ones… just make sure you use it as an opportunity to rebuild. Any fan of the sides who end Sunday below that dreaded dotted line in the table will find comfort in Burnley’s story. They slid out of the Premier League on the final day of last season,  but guess who’s just bounced back up as champions with an exciting, new-look team and momentum galore…

But how common is that? Do many teams bounce right back? And how many relegated clubs never see the Premier League again?

The Athletic has looked at all the clubs relegated from the Premier League since 1995-96 (its first 20-team season, after having 22 in its first three years) to see if they achieved a Burnley-esque return within one to three years of going down.

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The one year bounce-backs

It is the hope of any team axed from the Premier League. The plan: re-group in the summer, gather some serious momentum and then reclaim your spot in the top flight — hopefully in a stronger and more robust position than when you left the previous spring. The first parachute payment — 55 per cent of the equal distribution of broadcast payments to Premier League sides — received in the first season down in the EFL probably helps quite a bit in pulling this off.

But of the 81 teams relegated from domestic football’s elite division since 1995-96, only 22 (around 27 per cent) bounced straight back. On average, less than one relegated team a season returns to the top flight one year later.

There have been campaigns in which the promotion spots are heavily occupied by the previous season’s relegated teams. There are five years in which two of the three sides to come down have been promoted back up.

Over the past five seasons, five relegated teams have been promoted in the following campaign. But there has also been one year within that window in which none of the three bounced back.

There have also been some long spells without any teams making immediate returns to the top flight. Between the end of the 2002-03 season and the end of 2005-06, no sides went straight back up. The same happened between the end of 2016-17 and the end of 2018-19.

Total teams promoted back after one season: 22

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Bouncing back within two years

This is less common than going up again after one Championship season, suggesting that the best opportunity of re-entering the Premier League is on your first attempt. The second parachute payment, worth 45 per cent of the equal distribution of broadcast payments to Premier League sides, is a sizeable drop from season one’s 55 per cent.

Just eight teams across the 81 in our sample were promoted to the Premier League after their second season in the second tier.

In 2004-05, two clubs who had been relegated in 2002-03 won back places in the top flight — West Ham United and Sunderland.

Sheffield United, who were relegated in 2020-21, have achieved the same feat this season, finishing as runners-up to Burnley.

Sunderland’s 1998-99 promotion is also of note — it followed a loss in the play-off final on penalties the season before. They were unlucky to need a second bite of the cherry, but capitalised fully when granted that additional nibble.

Total teams promoted back after two seasons: Eight

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Bouncing back within three years

As teams move further away from their relegation to the Championship, they get less and less likely to go back up to the Premier League.

When it reaches the third season down, it is very rare that teams who come down ever experience the warm glow of the top flight again. Relegated teams who had been in the Premier League for more than one season receive a third and final parachute payment in year three of 20 per cent of the equal distribution of broadcast payments, which is clearly an even greater drop-off than between their first and second seasons in the EFL.

This might be why just four teams have been promoted back to the Premier League in their third season down in the time period we looked at — half the number who went up at the end of year two.

Norwich and Aston Villa earned promotion in their third season in the Championship four years ago, having gone down together in 2015-16. There have been just two other seasons in which teams have gone up at the third post-relegation attempt.

Total teams promoted back after three seasons: 4

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Relegated again within three years

As bad as relegation is, there is an even worse outcome — a double relegation.

This feat — or nightmare — has twice happened to clubs in back-to-back seasons.

In 2011-12, Wolverhampton Wanderers were relegated from the Premier League after spending two seasons on the top-flight gravy train. They appointed Stale Solbakken as manager that summer, then replaced him with Dean Saunders in the January, but at the end of a chaotic 2012-13 campaign, dropped to League One.

Sunderland tumbled out of the Premier League in 2016-17. With the Netflix documentary cameras watching on, they then plunged straight through the second tier into League One. They only came back up from the third tier for the start of this season.

While only those two teams have done back-to-back relegations, a further four have been relegated within three years of falling into the Championship.

Barnsley, having come down from the top flight in 1997-98, were relegated to what is now League One in 2001-02. Leeds went from being Champions League semi-finalists in 2000-01 to relegation in 2003-04. Their financial woes would then lead them further down, into League One, at the end of 2006-07.

Portsmouth had their own money problems when they were relegated from the Premier League in 2009-10 and these were exacerbated when they went down to the third division two years later. Remarkably, they dropped to League Two at the end of 2012-13, making it three relegations in four seasons.

Wigan Athletic won the FA Cup final that same season, but were relegated from the Premier League three days later. They had a good first year back in the Championship, reaching the play-offs, but started 2014-15 badly and sacked Uwe Rosler in the November. They appointed Malky Mackay, then Gary Caldwell for the final few games, but could not arrest the slide.

(Top photos: Getty Images)