Lest Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland’s managers have done a remarkable job of ignoring bad omens this summer, let’s revisit the one everyone knows: the last six teams promoted to the Premier League have been relegated.
Southampton, Leicester City and Ipswich Town made a heroically bad fist of staying up in 2024/25, but the long view looks more encouraging, with almost 53% of clubs promoted to the modern top flight lasting at least a season in the division.
Will the newcomers stay up? Here’s how they shape up for the scrap.
Premier League 2025/26: Leeds looking up
Once Premier League heavyweights, Leeds joined Burnley on 100 points under serial Championship promotion winner Daniel Farke, who was part of two Premier League relegations with Norwich City.
Joel Piroe was the second-tier top scorer with 19 goals and former Manchester City forward Lukas Nmecha has signed on a free transfer on Wolfsburg, while towering Germany midfielder Anton Stach cost £17.4 million from Hoffenheim and Newcastle were reluctant to let the hugely experienced Sean Longstaff leave for £12m.
Stats experts Opta have pointed out that no promoted team to earn eight points from their first five games has gone down. Meetings with Everton, Newcastle, Fulham and Wolves could contain those points for Leeds, although a first away trip to Arsenal looks less promising.
Premier League 2025/26: Burnley back in big time
Burnley’s remarkable record of 16 goals conceded in 46 games was by far the best of any team in England last season, although goalkeeper James Trafford has since rejoined Manchester City.
Like Farke, there are question marks over manager Scott Parker’s abilities at the top, having suffered Premier League relegation with Fulham in 2021 and left Bournemouth 25 days into their dismal start in 2022.
Burnley have spent £112 million, handing almost £45m to Chelsea for defender Bashir Humphreys, midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu and forward Armando Broja.
They will need to spring surprises if they are to make a fast start from initial encounters with Tottenham, Manchester United, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, but their first home game is against Sunderland.
Premier League 2025/26: Sunderland eye safety
Back after eight years away, Sunderland can perhaps justify spending almost £133m, having only known they were going up with a 95th-minute winner in the play-off final less than three months ago.
Regis Le Bris’ only senior managerial role before the start of last season had been two years with French club Lorient, and his signings look sensible, including the permanent capture of inspirational midfielder Enzo Le Fee from Roma for £19.3m and former Arsenal regular Granit Xhaka from Leverkusen for around £17m.
The Mackems have a potentially promising start, meeting West Ham, Brentford, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa as well as the Clarets.
Where will Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland finish?
Even bookmakers occasionally make mistakes, so let’s ignore the status of the trio as favourites to go down – Burnley and Sunderland are odds-on – and back all three to stay up.
Need convincing? All three teams survived a mere three seasons ago. For the record, a rough transposing of the odds for the relegated teams that season would condemn Wolves, Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion this time out.
