English Football Could See Never-Before-Seen Scenario if Tables Remain Same

All three newly promoted clubs this season – Burnley, Leeds and Sunderland – have enjoyed relatively positive starts to the 2025-26 Premier League campaign based on previous years.

More often than not, those who achieve promotion struggle to adapt to England's top flight. In fact, for the past two seasons, all three teams that have come up from the Championship have gone straight back down.

Last season, promoted sides Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton stumbled to a collective 59 points – a record-low tally that even trumped Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United's effort in 2023-24 of 66 points.

Burnley, Leeds and particularly Sunderland, however, have made encouraging starts and could potentially buck that trend come the end of the 2025-26 campaign.

In fact, as pointed out by Kieran Maguire, there are currently no clubs in the Premier League's bottom three – Nottingham Forest, West Ham and Wolves – who were promoted from the Championship last season.

Sunderland currently sit seventh in the table with four wins from a possible eight games, while Leeds (16th) and Burnley (17th) hover above the relegation zone.

In addition, none of the current top six in the Championship – Coventry, Middlesbrough, Millwall, Bristol City, Charlton and Stoke – were relegated from England's top flight last season.

Should those tables remain unchanged, it would mark a historic first in the Premier League era, with no promoted clubs featuring in the bottom three, while the Championship's top six contains no clubs relegated from the Premier League last season (Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton).

Here's how fans on social media reacted to the stat.

One said: "Favourite thing about the season so far after peak yo-yo last two seasons. Felt like it was going to become endemic," while a second commented: "Football is healing."

A third wrote: "It’s not as big a gap as people make out. All three teams that got relegated last season spent big, they just spent badly and are now suffering the consequences of poor recruitment."

A fourth added: "Thats is refreshing to see. Money has ruined football. Clubs at the top of the pyramid think they have a god given right. Football was better when Leeds, Forest, Derby etc were winning titles and teams like QPR were runners up. Better times."

There have been plenty of near-misses. Back in 2001-02, the Premier League's bottom three included Ipswich, Derby and Leicester (none were newly promoted), but the second-tier's top six teams included Manchester City, who were relegated from England's top flight the previous season.

A decade later and the Premier League's bottom three included Bolton, Blackburn, Wolves, but the Championship's top six included West Ham, Birmingham and Blackpool, who were all relegated from the top flight in 2010-11.

Other examples include a Premier League bottom three of Swansea, Stoke and West Brom, but the Championship top six featured recently-relegated Middlesbrough, who dropped down from the top flight in 2016-17.