It seems like it’s never been harder for promoted teams to stay in the Premier League.
It looks fairly certain that the three promoted teams will be relegated to the Championship after just one season for the second straight year. That's never previously happened in the Premier League era (since 1992).
Last season, it was Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton.
This season, Southampton’s relegation has already been confirmed — in record fashion — while Leicester and Ipswich are so far adrift of safety that they have little chance of surviving. Ipswich, in third-to-last place, is 12 points behind fourth-to-last Wolverhampton with seven games remaining.
The combined points tally of Southampton (10), Leicester (17) and Ipswich (20) would barely get them into mid-table, backing up a growing argument that this might be the weakest crop of promoted teams the Premier League has ever seen.
Here’s a by-the-numbers look at how bad their seasons have been:
Southampton
3 Southampton is already on its third manager of the season, after Ivan Juric was fired on Monday and replaced by Simon Rusk on an interim basis. It started the season with Russell Martin in charge but he was replaced by Juric in December.
7 The Saints were relegated with seven games remaining, and that’s a record. No team has ever been confirmed to go down with seven or more games to play, according to stats supplier Opta.
10 The number of points Southampton has. The race is on to beat the lowest points tally ever by a team in the Premier League era: Derby County’s 11 from the 2007-08 season.
25 The number of losses by Southampton, in 31 games played.
Leicester
8 Leicester’s 3-0 defeat to Newcastle on Monday meant the team has lost eight straight home games in the league without scoring. That’s never happened before in the top four divisions of English soccer.
11 Leicester has lost 11 homes games in a single league campaign for the first time.
72 It is now 72 days since Leicester scored — home or away — in the Premier League. The last player to hit the back of the net was Bilal El Khannouss against Tottenham on Jan. 26.
Ipswich
6 Ipswich has been beaten in each of its last six homes game, the team's longest losing run at home since 1963. The latest was against Wolves, 2-1, on Saturday.
11 The number of home losses for Ipswich this season, from 16 games.
140 Ipswich spent about 109 million pounds ($140 million) to bring in 10 players in the summer transfer window. Only Brighton spent more in the Premier League.
