Yo-yo clubs in English football have experienced the polarised feelings of promotion ecstasy to the Premier League (PL) and the despair of relegation to the Championship. Here, we look at how this already-curious phenomenon could gain even more significance in the coming months…
At least one of last season's PL dropouts – Leicester, Leeds and Southampton – will return immediately to the PL, while only a monumental collapse will deny either of the other two at least a playoff place.
Current Championship promotion odds have leaders Leicester as clear favourites. Leeds are not far behind the Foxes, but the Saints are considered slight outsiders, given that they sit eight points off the automatic promotion places.
- Leicester – 1/14
- Leeds – 2/7
- Southampton – 11/8
Only Ipswich divides last season’s relegation trio as the Tractor Boys occupy second place.
Meanwhile, the PL's current bottom three consists of all the newly-promoted sides. With respective relegation odds of 1/12 and 1/50, Burnley and Sheffield United have long been written off as no-hopers. Only Luton Town, at a more respectable 4/6 have any realistic hope of avoiding the drop.
They may yet be aided by PSR-related points deductions for Nottingham Forest and Everton within the few weeks. But for now, the door is wide open for a perfect ‘as you were' in 2024/25.
The ‘unique feat' we could finally see
Never before have the three newly promoted clubs of the PL all swapped places with the relegated sides from the previous campaign. However, this phenomenon could finally become reality, a whole 26 years after it failed to do so by the finest possible margin.
In the 1996/97 PL season, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest were relegated from the top flight. None of these clubs wallowed in self-pity though, and they all produced strong performances in the 1997/98 Division 1 season.
Forest went up as champions, amassing a whopping 94 points from 46 matches, and Boro were a close second with 91 points.
However, Sunderland missed out on automatic promotion, finishing just one point behind Middlesbrough. The Black Cats then had to participate in the footballing gamble of the play-offs.
After edging past Sheffield United in the semi-final, Sunderland took on Charlton in the final. An end-to-end tussle ensued, and the sides produced the highest-scoring Division 1 / Championship play-off final in history as it ended 4-4.
The Black Cats couldn’t hold their nerve though and lost 7-6 on penalties, as Charlton cemented their place in the 1998/99 PL.
Other Yo-yo clubs in English football could still sneak in
Charlton would immediately be relegated, and then promoted, before spending seven years in the PL. That gave the Addicks some short-lived yo-yo status. However, several clubs have comfortably eclipsed them in that regard since the turn of the century, including the ‘doomed' duo of Burnley and Sheffield United.
Over the past decade, the Clarets have won promotion to the PL three times and been relegated twice. Similarly, in the past five years alone, Sheffield United have already been promoted twice and relegated once.
But there are also some others in the ‘yo-yo' category who could sneak in through the Wembley backdoor this year too.
Even before their recent spate of division swaps under Daniel Farke, Norwich were considered a club with sparse loyalty to either of English football's top two leagues, having spent 27 seasons in the top flight and 23 in the second tier since 1972.
And before the Canaries, West Brom truly earned their ‘boing, boing Baggies' tag in this century's first decade. Between 2002 and 2010, the Baggies spent five seasons in the PL and four in the Championship.
This season, both Norwich and West Brom are play-off contenders in the second tier, with the Baggies in fifth and the Canaries in seventh.
