Premier League institutions Villa, Sunderland, and Newcastle facing the drop

By on February 20, 2016

Only seven teams have been present in every Premier League season since the rebranding of England’s top division in 1992. Next season that number will almost surely be reduced to six. Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, and Manchester United all maintain their holds on the upper reaches of the table, while Aston Villa is the odd man out. More recently, it has gotten awfully cold in the shadow of their historical peers. Seven points adrift at the bottom of the table, on the back of a recent 6-0 home thumping by Liverpool, their relegation appears a foregone conclusion.

At a time when relegation has never been more costly, with the new Premier League TV deal coming into effect next season, the bottom six spent £90m of the £175 million dished out by Premier League clubs over the January transfer window. Watford, Newcastle United and Norwich City accounted for 40% of the combined league expenditures, but Villa contributed an astounding zero percent.

Publicly unengaged owner Randy Lerner didn’t even bother to dip his toe into the transfer market to attempt to salvage their train-wreck of a season. Having replaced manager Tim Sherwood in the fall, Remi Garde is now probably only in the race to avoid impairing his resume, but the manager, players, and owners all should be able to move on from the inevitable relegation. It’s the supporters of the club and its legacy that are being left behind to rot in a quagmire of poor recruitment and appalling apathy from the owners.

They’re not the only long-time Premier League institution to face the drop this season. Newcastle United, who have played in twenty-two of twenty-four Premier League seasons and finished in the top five seven times, as recently as the 2011/2012 season, are also teetering on the brink of relegation. They’re tied with Norwich City on twenty-four points and two points worse off for goal differential, and while recent wins over West Bromwich Albion and West Ham United suggested they were on the right track towards survival, they rolled over last weekend in a lethargic 5-1 drubbing at the hands of Chelsea.

The Magpies have flirted with relegation for years, but considering their woeful inconsistency of late, perhaps they’ve haven’t been closer to the drop for a number of years. Steve McClaren is struggling to motivate the dressing room at St James’ Park and although the fans are increasingly dissatisfied, they’ve still got hope left.

Sunderland, who have been in the Premier League for nine consecutive seasons, are also putting up a relegation fight — one they’ve been well accustomed to in recent years, having finished in the top half of the table just once in their fourteen seasons in England’s top division in the past quarter century.

With a recent win over Manchester United and a draw with Liverpool, they’re starting to gain momentum as they crawl their way back towards safety and they’ve already put the most difficult part of their fixture list behind them. Sam Allardyce and his January signing have Sunderland poised to make a comeback, although they’re still second to bottom at the moment. If not Sunderland or Newcastle, two historical behemoths of English football, Norwich and Swansea City are also teetering towards the bottom end of the table.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.