Relegation analysis: England 2019/20

In this article I take a look at the future of each of the teams changing leagues in the top two divisions of English football. In particular, the three relegated from the PL and what I expect of them next season.

Going from top to bottom, in terms of finish, we'll start with Bournemouth. Living thousands of miles from Dean Court, and not having a legit connection to any Cherries fans, I'm going off of my own observations and what I've seen online. My take with this team's that it's a similar situation to Swansea a few years back. By this, I mean they were dwindling in the lower reaches of English football, had some kinda of schism that led to a turnaround, and rode that momentum through the leagues, eventually reaching the promised land. The leaders of Swansea were Roberto Martinez and Brendan Rodgers, and once they left things maintained for a while before going south. Eddie Howe has been at Bournemouth throughout, ignoring a failed season at Burnley. From what I gather, the 2019/20 season was a perfect storm of things going wrong, which is what led to the team going down. I'll start with injuries. Every team has them, but it's a fact that "big clubs" are richer and more likely to be playing in Europe, thus they'll have deeper squads able to better cope with injuries. I have a few qualms about the club and its Premier League stay. First is the style, more specifically the regression in recent seasons. At some point, after playing like a mid-table Bundesliga team, Eddie Howe realized he had to do something to sure up his defense. The stereotype from people who only watch Bournemouth a handful of times each season is that they play "good attacking football", and that was true until, let's say the 2018/19 season. This season, in particular, they scored most of their goals from set pieces. Part of this can be explained by Harry Wilson being in the team, as he's pretty much only good for set pieces. Also, David Brooks was out long term. Ryan Fraser was poor, having checked out mentally with his contract set to expire. Callum Wilson, another player who's hard to judge, regressed greatly from 2018/19 to 2019/20, going from 14 goals 9 assists to 8 goals 1 assist. A caveat here is he under-performed both xG (8 vs 10.1) and xA (1 vs 3.2) this season, while he massively over-performed in xA with the 9 assists (xA was 4.2). The same can be said about Josh King, in terms of regression for his attacking output, though he's been steady with xG data and actual numbers. So, to sum this up, they no longer are a free-scoring team, and they still cannot stop conceding, despite playing more reactive football than before. The final aspect of the failure at Bournemouth is recruitment. I'm not sure why, but the more Eddie Howe would spend on a player, the worse his performance. Looking at the transfer successes, they include C Wilson at 3.3m, Gosling and Stanislas (free), King (free), and Ramsdale 850k. Mings was a success, even if he didn't play well for them, simply because he was bought for 10m and flipped to Villa for A number of the signings are still up in the air, such as Danjuma 16m, Billing 15m, Kelly 13m, Lerma 25m, Solanke 19m (been arguably the worst, along with Ibe, but he's still young), Rico 13.5m, Mepham 12m, and Lewis Cook 6m. Brooks has the potentially to make a profit, and he's genuinely PL quality, so 10m for him is decent business. Ake was 20m from Chelsea and sold to City for 40m, as well as being the best player at Bournemouth, so that's another success. The amount of money they spent in recent years is not reflective of a "small, plucky underdog club", so hopefully that narrative will disappear. Recent news has stated that the club had an 80 million pound debt after relegation, though a large chunk of that was wiped out by the Ake sale. I can see big clubs looking at King and Wilson for depth up front, despite them having subpar seasons. Brooks is the gem out of this lot, in my opinion, and the trio of Billing/Cook/Lerma all have positive midfield traits that could flourish in a different situation. Those three are all surprisingly young, as well, so despite maybe not performing that well at the Vitality Stadium, they'll have resale value. I'd also keep an eye on Kelly and Ramsdale, who realistically need another year or two at the club, even if it's in the Championship. I'm intrigued to see how much of the squad is sold and who's brought in, as the next season has all the potential to be a struggle. Just look at Huddersfield and Stoke recently, or even Sunderland getting relegated twice in two seasons.

I ranted about Watford before relegation was confirmed, so I'll copy/paste that, as the club is a mess.

I have no problem with Watford FC. In fact, I don’t have a “local club”, thus I don’t have a rival team to hate, so I don’t “hate” any team. That said, I carry a disdain for various aspects of “modern football”. There are many problems with the sport currently, but for this I’ll just focus on ownership. I was listening to an Udinese fan on an Italian football podcast recently, and she was venting about the Pozzo family and the decline of the club over a number of years. This is obviously relevant to Watford because they have the same owner (maybe it’s his son, but that’s a technicality). Granada, the ugly duckling of the group, was also owned by these individuals, though the Spanish club was bought out by a Chinese businessman. That club has had its fortunes change drastically, this season in particular, finishing 7th and qualifying for Europe (the preliminary rounds) for the first time ever. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of owning a football club, but the idea generally seems to be to buy cheap, improve the situation, and eventually sell for a profit. English football clubs are by far the wealthiest; Norwich, who were atrocious this season, leave the division with something ridiculous like 100 million pounds of TV money, plus the parachute payments over the next 2-3 years. In contrast, other leagues like Italy and Spain are unbalanced in terms of revenue. The teams outside of, let’s say, the top 4 make a fraction of what Barcelona and Madrid bring in, and that’s just form the domestic league. It’s even worse in Italy because most teams don’t own their stadiums. This largely attributed to Juventus becoming the dominant team. Udinese, to be fair, is actually one of the others to own its stadium. However, the on-field production is well below par, at least compared to what it was in the late 00's and early 2010's.

* Udinese Serie A League position chart *

2018-19 12th, 43 points

2017-18 14th, 40 points

2016-17 13th, 45 points

2015-16 17th, 39 points

2014-15 16th, 41 points

2013-14 14th, 44 points

2012-13 5th, 66 points

2011-12 3rd, 64 points

2010-11 4th, 66 points

2009-10 15th, 44 points

2008-09 7th, 58 points

2007-08 7th, 57 points

It’s clear the club has been on a downward trajectory, and it’s simply because of apathy, which starts from the top. To go from European competition to mid table that quickly, and to just stay there for years on end, is the result of mismanagement. Watford is one of, if not, the main reason for said apathy. Simply put, there’s more money in the Premier League than Serie A, so that’s where the Pozzo family energy goes. I doubt it’s a coincidence that Watford went from mid-table in the Championship one year, to promotion the next, just as the Udinese dip occurred (2013/14 onward). The first and most obvious sign of chaos in management is how often staff changes occur, in particular the manager. Since 2012, the year Pozzo took over, the club has had 12 managers. It’s frankly impossible to have any semblance of sustainability in a football club when the coach doesn’t stay for more than a year. My take on why they were relegated this season is players that are a) unmotivated due to the constant managerial turmoil, and b) lack of talent in the back line (this is a theme of pretty much every relegation-threatened team, every single year). I'm not sure whose defensive woes were more pathetic between these and Bournemouth. Both were promoted at the same time, and for the same mediocre defenders to turn out every season is a sack-able offence for whoever runs the show. The other obvious position of weakness in 2019/20 was up front. Troy Deeney, compared to other robotic footballers who've been training for football and only football from age 8, is an interesting character. A good striker, at this point, he is not. The unsettling thing about Watford is simply the amount of young forwards at the club that didn't play PL minutes. I get the work permit thing, but when Troy Deeney is your starter, and you're relying on Danny Welbeck who's never fit, you aren't going to score goals. Joao Pedro played 22 minutes in three appearances despite arriving in January. I'll accept that Luis Suarez (the Colombian one) was playing in Segunda, but to have Cucho Hernandez on your books (loaned to Mallorca) as well is criminal. Likewise, when Holebas is still playing regularly while you have Pervis Estupinan tearing up the left flank at Osasuna, I'm going to question what your transfer strategy is. In fact, the two highest transfers in are Ismaila Sarr, who's only been there one season, at 27 million, and Andre Gray (18 million). Gray was a terrible buy, looking back, and Sarr may well move on instead of playing in the Championship. Aside from those two, the club hasn't spent more than 13.5 million on a player. That was Isaac Success, another abject failure, though Deulofeu and Pereyra were 11 and 12 million, respectively, and they have resale value. Richarlison was bought for 11 million and sold for 35, very solid business, although he may have been worth keeping, in hindsight, considering the aforementioned dearth of goal-scoring at the club. It's actually impressive that the club lasted so long on such a tight budget, for Premier League standards. I'd back them to fight for promotion next season as long as they keep a few decent players and find some half decent defenders.

The final relegated team is Norwich. I don't have that much to say about them. Like Paderborn, Mallorca, and Lecce elsewhere, none of these teams stood much of a chance at staying up. The difference with the Canaries was the prize money at stake. I'd argue that Aston Villa, despite how dreadful they were at the back and how much of a struggle it was to score goals, actually gave it a go by spending money. To be fair, the situations weren't exactly the same; Villa had a number of loanees, mainly Tammy Abraham and Tyrone Mings of note, as well as players that left the club, so they literally had to make some signings. Norwich, on the other hand, loaned in a few guys in hopes that they'd perform (spoiler, literally none of them did) and relied on the squad that won the second division the previous season. Not to toot my own horn, but I called it before the first game of the season (a 4-1 defeat at Anfield) that Norwich would go down with that defense. I also said Tim Krul wasn't good enough, which was later proven wrong, so good on him. I mentioned injuries with Bournemouth, and unsurprisingly, Norwich underwent a similar crisis (with central defenders). According to the stats, Norwich found themselves "unlucky", as their xG and xGA were both much more respectable than what the bottom dwellers found themselves looking at on the table (26 GF vs 38 xG, 75 GA vs 62 xGA). I had an idea around the time the break ended to compare Norwich and Newcastle to try and find an explanation as to why xG data isn't the end all, be all. It's not a coincidence to me that "attacking teams" create more chances and "defensive teams", but what matters is the actual goals. Newcastle's most recent two coaches have been smart enough to realize a number of guys in that squad aren't good enough to play good football, thus they play a boring game that limits high quality chances against. Same thing with Burnley, and I'd say they have worse players and are getting better results. Sean Dyche is a legend for what he's done there. Getting back to Norwich, though. I see a couple things being potential problems going back down to the Championship. One is players wanting to leave. When you play at a higher level and get that taste of elite competition, why would you want to go back to a lower standard? A number of youngsters are there to be poached, and if valuations are met they'll leave. The valuations are quite possibly unrealistic, however, and that's where I see problems ensuing. Let's take the Jamal Lewis situation. What happens if nobody wants to pay 18 million or whatever it is? He could easily say screw this and turn in mediocre performances next season. If a few guys in the squad start doing that, the slide is going to continue. Unlike last season, the club has made a few actual signings in the transfer window. One is of particular relevance to me, as Sebastian Soto is American. A bit like the Watford loan army that can't get work permits, I'm skeptical whenever an American joins a team where he won't be eligible (or at the required level) to play. Soto just turned 20, so he needs all the minutes he can handle, as he wasn't playing much in Germany. The other young players at Norwich will face this choice, either to stick it out another season, hopefully gaining promotion or playing their way to a move to a better club, or force a move now. I see Buendia leaving, as he's not English and has no reason to stay. The four Brits (Aarons, Cantwell, Godfrey, and Lewis) could all go, but I wouldn't be shocked if any one of them stayed. Aarons is quite young still and looked poor for large parts of the season, as did Lewis (who's a bit older). The thing with these two is it's a risk keeping them, as they have replacements (Byram and McCallum) and they could have dreadful seasons, which would kill any hype they had from the PL exposure. Godfrey is the best athlete of the bunch, though he could be better as a Declan Rice type of DM than a CB. His awareness as a defender needs substantial improvement; however, this could also be a result of the poor midfield in front of him and the injuries at CB. I've seen him liked to Milan, and I like that fit, as he'd be with Romagnoli (no-nonsense) and protected by an actual midfield (Bennacer-Kessie) with Donnarumma shutting things down in goal. Cantwell is a wildcard. He played more (and better) in the Premier League than the second tier, yet he's only really had one professional season. He's 22, so it's not like he's THAT young. Definitely driven, however, given his sudden rise. I'm looking at Adam Idah to have a greater role in the squad next season, as well. He's a talented young striker, eligible to play for Nigeria. A number of players at the club have been incredibly poor, or frozen out altogether. I'm thinking Moritz Leitner, in particular. The club is in a great place, financially, having barely spent, but I question how long the buy-in with Farke and Webber will last. It's one thing to be sustainable, and I respect that, but to admit defeat the way they did is embarrassing. Momentum is often an overrated concept, but I do believe mentality is massive in what happens, and losing habits needs to be corrected immediately. The short pre-season may also affect this.