What will it take to avoid relegation in the 2015-16 Premier League...

What will it take to avoid relegation in the 2015-16 Premier League season?

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Ever since AFC Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich City confirmed their promotion, they would have had their eyes on one thing- avoiding the drop. Having a presence in the top flight means financial prosperity and commercial superiority, a fact made more prevalent given the new television rights deal the Premier league is currently under.

But what does it take to stay up in the modern Premier League? Is it a realistic goal? Just how well do you have to play to survive?- all are valid questions. All are things that are pondered when considering whether or not a team stands a valid chance, but very rarely are specifics discussed.

Given the results of the promoted sides over the weekend, their ambitions would no doubt be starting to moderate themselves. All three sides had reasonable opening fixtures, however, only Watford were able to take away a single point from the round.  

Despite the reality check all three sides have suffered, it is still important for each to keep their eyes on the objective at hand. Turning around the morale in the camp may be made easier when your teams chances of survival are fully understood.

Part One – The odds

What does history say about the chances of the Premier League’s newest sides staying up?

The hit-and-miss rate of promoted sides surviving their inaugural season is actually pretty promising, at least according to the final standings over the past ten seasons.

Lets start with the positive, that is, that over the past decade all three promoted sides have never been relegated. What does that mean in the scope of the current campaign? It means that the new up-and-comers are theoretically in direct competition with each other- running with the assumption that at least one team will stay up.

It is a loose conclusion to draw, but also a reasonable and achievable target, in what can be a pretty overwhelming Premier League campaign for the newly promoted sides.

Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich are out camping, when a bear suddenly comes out and growls.  

Watford starts putting on his tennis shoes.

Bournemouth says, “What are you doing?” Norwich, “You can’t outrun a bear!”

Watford says, “I don’t have to outrun the bear—I just have to outrun you!”

The flip-side is that in the last ten years, all three promoted sides have only survived the drop once. Meaning that despite the best efforts of the new sides, it is almost certain that come next May at least one of the well-to-do clubs will be returning to the Championship.

However, history states that it will likely be one of the new sides being demoted. This is down to the fact that only on three occasions in the last ten EPL seasons have two newly-promoted sides been relegated during their inaugural run. In the other seven seasons, only one or less were sent straight back to the Championship.

Which is a task made a lot more comprehensible when you know who you have to perform well against, and where in terms of points you need to be, come the end of season.

The newly promoted sides are in direct competition with for Premier League survival
The newly promoted sides are in direct competition with for Premier League survival

Part Two – 17th place.

Finishing 17th means avoiding relegation, so where does history set the bar?

The battle to stay up is all about finishing in that coveted 17th place on the table. It is the bare minimum in terms of gauging whether a newly promoted side can dub their season successful or not. But at this early stage of the season, how can you know how high to aim? What losses can be afforded? Is a team  on track or falling behind?

To help get a grasp on the statistical makeup of 17th position, there was data collected on the team to finish in the spot over each of the last ten Premier League campaigns, which was then tabled and analysed – producing some reasonably consistent trends that start to form.

According to the data, a newly promoted side would have to accrue about 37 points by the end of the season to secure a 17th place finish. Building on that, in the past 10 seasons, the team to finish in 17th has always finished with between 35 and 40 points. Given the turbulent nature of the Premier League, that is a very specific window and pretty clearly sets out what it takes to cling on to survival in the Premier League – point-wise at least.

So that is points. But anyone could have told you they need to get points on the board. It is how they get their points that is interesting.

On average, the team that has finished 17th in the Premier League has not won more than nine games during their campaign. Given that it is a 38 round competition, if Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich want to stay up, they only have to win about a quarter of their matches.

Villa finished in 17th last year with 10 wins and eight draws
Villa finished in 17th last year with 10 wins and eight draws

Another real clincher is taking points away – that means getting draws. The last ten ‘17th placers’ achieved an average of ten stalemates per season. When you put that in accumulation with the amount of ‘wins’ they need, it means that they will need to be taking points away from 19 (half) of their 38 fixtures.

These win/draw numbers are not set in stone though. In the 2013-14 season, West Bromwich Albion managed to stay up having only won seven games all season. They did, however, manage an impressive 15 league draws. This anomaly gives testimony to the fact that when push comes to shove – park the bus.

The final revelation to come out of the research is the fact that, if you finish in 17th place, there is going to be more goals conceded than scored. On average, the side in 17th scored about 40 goals per season, with an actual spectrum of anywhere between 31 and 47. However, in each of the 10 most recent seasons, 17th place has always conceded more than they have scored, anywhere from 54 to 66 goals – 61 on average.

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If you go with the already established averages, the newly promoted teams will need to score roughly 40 goals and concede 61 to manage a 17th place finish – that means scoring two goals for every three conceded throughout the season.

Given all that has been said, it must also be mentioned that these are just the insinuations of statistics. It is perfectly possible for teams that fail to reach the benchmarks set out in the past couple of paragraphs to still avoid relegation. By the same merit, a team could realistically fulfill their ‘17th place obligations’ and still become a victim of relegation.

Though there are no certainties in the Premier League, if the newly promoted sides can manage to tick as many of the boxes set out over the history of 17th place, they would seriously improve their chances of avoiding the drop this year.

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