Having just seen all three promoted teams head straight back from the Premier League t Leicester Cityo the Championship last season, top-flight new boys, Ipswich Town and Southampton will be keenly aware that the gap between the top two divisions is an absolute gulf these days.
Do they have a shot at staying up? We watched each of the newly-promoted sides both on TV and in person multiple times last season, and here’s how we rate their chances, from most to least likely to survive the drop…but honestly it would be refreshing to be wrong on all three.
The main factors behind our thinking are that 1) Leicester were simply better than Southampton over the course of last season, hence they went up automatically rather than needing the play-offs; and 2) although they’ve lost manager ChEnzo Maresca toelsea, they have appointed a manager with equally expansive ideas to Russell Martin, but who also has experience making the compromises required to keep a newly-promoted side in the Premier League.
We dare say that Steve Cooper will get a firmer say on what recruitment he wants at the King Power Stadium than he had to put up with at scattergun Nottingham Forest, too, and should have the clearest idea of the three managers what mistakes the club need to avoid.
Crucially, Leicester had the best defensive record in the Championship last season, conceding less than two-thirds the goals shipped by a somewhat leakier Southampton side.
That does not always translate into the Premier League, as we know from recent experience, but it’s as much evidence as we have to go on that Leicester may be the best-placed of the three to stay up.
We’re not daft enough to fall for Leicester like we did for Burnley, though.
Southampton: We really, really like Russell Martin and we really really like his football, but…they did concede a lot of goals last season, and for long phases of the campaign were reliant on late goals to get the job done.
That worries us about them in the Premier League, where the fitness level is so much higher and the opportunities to grind down the opposition Rocky Balboa style are altogether more limited. We’re also not sure how far Martin is willing to compromise his style to suit the different demands of the Premier League.
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