The Premier League's 9th Place Curse

what constitutes a good season in the Premier League well it's all relative of course for Loot and town in Sheffield United this season anything above 18th would be cause for an open top bus parade through bedfordshire or South Yorkshire for Manchester City anything other than first is an aberration and failure to qualify for the Champions League might be sufficient to land you a show trial and the loss of one of your limbs in the UAE for a lot of aspirational Premier League clubs though outside of the established Rich six of the last 15 plus years Ninth Place has almost become The Benchmark of a really successful campaign breaking into the top six is so difficult given the financial disparities in the league so a top off finish nowhere near the relegation Zone and within touching distance of qualifying for Europe is like the ultimate status symbol of a well-run ambitious and upwardly mobile Club from there having laid down that Gauntlet to those more established clubs they hope to keep on building and ultimately become one of those established clubs themselves it's perfectly reasonable logic and a perfectly good cause for celebration but it rarely works out like that in fact every single club that finished ninth in the Premier League between the 200 and 809 and 2000 and 2021 Seasons a period of 13 years went on to be relegated and typically not long after finishing ninth it is an extraordinary statistic which isn't remotely replicated if you look at the teams who finished either side of them in eighth and 10th Place throughout that same period so naturally I wanted to investigate by taking a look at each of the clubs that have finished ninth and where it all went wrong for them if there is anything that they all have in common and whether Brentford who finished ninth in the Premier League last season or to be concerned first and foremost it is worth having a rundown of the 10 Premier League teams that have finished ninth between the 200 and 809 and 2020-21 Seasons because that in of itself is quite interesting they read West Ham United Birmingham City Aston Villa Fulham Swansea City Stoke City Bournemouth Leicester city Sheffield United and Leeds United immediately you might have sent something of a theme in all but the case of Aston Villa and even there perhaps there is an argument to be had the clubs in question were largely perceived as having overachieved in finishing ninth villarre also one of only two teams in that list along with Fulham who won relatively recent arrivals to the Premier League when they finish ninth in other words Aston Villa were the only Club pretty remarkably out of a sample size of 10 teams who were regressing at the point in which they finished ninth all of the others to varying degrees it must be said were in the ascendancy at the time there was a feel-good factor around the club and it was either one of or the best season that they had experienced in a number of years in the case of Swansea it was their highest League finish in over 30 years and their second highest ever for Stoke and Sheffield United it was their highest in 39 years they both finished higher in the same season incidentally for Birmingham city it was their highest in over 50 years and for Bournemouth it was and Still Remains the highest League finish in the entire 124 year history of the club West Ham's Ninth Place finish in the 200809 season was particularly interesting and impressive given that off the pitch it couldn't really have been a much more chaotic campaign for the club only three games into the season manager Alan curbishly resigned claiming that the club had sold Anson Ferdinand and George McCartney to Sunderland behind his back curvishly who had 17 years and almost 800 games of First Team Management under his belt though he has never worked as a manager since was replaced by managerial novice Jean Franco Zola Zola had never managed in first team football ever before and didn't even hold the required UEFA a coaching license at the time kurbishly proceeded to successfully sue West Ham for constructs of dismissal owing to a clause in his contract which stipulated that he would have the final say on all transfers in and out of the club and West Ham were forced to pay him 2.2 million pounds in compensation perhaps you know that's part of the reason why he has never worked again if you thought that was chaotic and it was in late 2008 virtually Iceland's entire banking system collapsed West Ham's owner at the time was the the chairman and the largest shareholder of Iceland's second largest bank which was declared bankrupt and nationalized in October 2008. bjor golfer Goodman's son went from having a net worth of 1.1 billion dollars in March 2008 to a net worth of zero dollars in December 2008 according to Forbes and he soon declared personal bankruptcy owing more than 750 million dollars often cited as the world's biggest personal bankruptc save as you can imagine this wasn't great news for West Ham though the club still spent a club record-breaking 9 million pounds on Savio nazareko in the January transfer window who would go down as one of the worst Premier League signings of all time West Ham also lost their top scorer from the previous season Dean Ashton to her uncle injury in only the fourth game of the season which forced him to retire at the age of 26. so go through all of that then in a single season and still finish ninth just four years after winning promotion from the championship that is quite some achievements and following a summer takeover there was excitement that perhaps now West Ham could really start to push on The Following Season West Ham finished 17th the season after that they finished bottom of the Liga more relegated as West Ham were busy finishing 17th it was Birmingham City's turn to take on the Ninth Place curse though you would do well to find a blue nose who was complaining about it at the time newly promoted to the Premier League That season haven't been Championship Runners of the previous season Birmingham city were hot favorites to go straight back down heading into the campaign only Burnley at two to one on were shorter odds than Birmingham at 8-11 who came into the season with a two-year corruption investigation into co-owner David Sullivan and managing director Karen Brady just haven't been dropped and an ongoing takeover mellow drama involving future owner Carson young Birmingham surprised everyone though finishing 15 points above the drop in ninth and just 13 points behind Liverpool in the last European qualification place not since the 1950s had Birmingham city finish that high in the Top Flight of English football so there was plenty of excitement around Saint Andrews and going into The Following season eight teams were shorter odds than Birmingham to go down this time priced at six to one second season syndrome can be brutal though and despite winning The League Cup in the 2010-11 season defeat on the final day of the Season saw Alex mcleish's side drop into the bottom three for the first time in over two months Birmingham are one of three newly promoted teams to finish ninth in their first season back in the Top Flight since the 200809 season with the others being the very recent examples of Sheffield United and Leeds United Sheffield United were the favorites to go down in the 2019-20 season which came just two years after the club had been in League one but the blades like Birmingham took Everyone by surprise Chris Wilder's tactical Ingenuity with overlapping sensorbacks in a 532 formation caught a lot of teams off guard and they might have qualified for the Champions League were not for the fact that no one in their squad scored more than six goals the blades lost the same number of games that say season as Chelsea who finished fourth and only two points separated them from Michaela tata's Arsenal for a club that had spent most of the past decade playing in League one this was a Herculean first season back in the big time and Blades fans couldn't wait to see what was next the answer as they'd have known if they knew about the Ninth Place curse was of course relegation and an emphatic relegation at that having lost 12 games all season the previous term Sheffield United lost 29 games in the 2020-21 season the joint most in a single Premier League campaign tied with Derby County as they amassed a miserable 23 points and finish dead last Leeds United won promotion from the championship and finished ninth in the Premier League exactly one year after their Yorkshire Rivals but surely they wouldn't just be a flash in the pan as well Leeds had won the championship title unlike Sheffield United they they had a mass day whopping 59 points in their first season back in the top flight and they were managed by a man who Pep Guardiola described as the best coach in World football The Following Season Marcelo bielsa was sacked and although Leeds avoided relegation in a dramatic final day of the Season it only delayed the inevitable last season Leeds finished 19th under their third manager of the Season having won just seven games throughout the entire campaign that's not even half as many as they won in 2000 in 2021 when they finished three points behind Tottenham and only two behind Arsenal Swansea City and Bournemouth meanwhile weren't quite newly promoted but managed to finish ninth in only their second seasons in the Premier League in some ways that ought to be even more positive since they had Illustrated an ability to survive first and foremost and now they had built upon that with top our finishers this wasn't just one free great season Swansea for example had already finished 11th in their first season of Top Flight football in three decades under Brendan Rodgers playing a vibrant brand of possession-based football that had won them promotion in the first place and had earned the massive plaudids it also landed Rogers the Liverpool job over the summer but Swansea only improved without him as Michael louderup guarded the swans not only to a league up Crown at Wembley Stadium which was swansea's first ever major Trophy and with it can European football but also a 9th Place finish in the Premier League only two places below rogers's Liverpool In fairness to Swansea the curse took a little longer to strike them down relegated in 2018 having flirted with a drop for the past three seasons but it gets everyone eventually Bournemouth similarly to Swansea had climbed from League two to the Premier League in just five years it took Swansea six and their style of play Under Eddie Howe Drew claudits from all quarters and plenty of support from neutrals you will need more than that to dodge the 9th Place curse though three years was all that it took for the kiss of death to draw to its natural conclusion at Dean courts with Eddie Howard a party at the end of the 2019-20 season by Mutual consent Leicester city and Stoke City the only teams to have finished ninth more than once since 2008 did so in their fourth and sixth Seasons back in the Premier League Leicester circumstances were a little bit well should we just say unusual having won the Premier League in the greatest upset in modern football history in 2016 two years before finishing ninth in the intervening season though Claudia Ranieri had been sacked as the foxes flirted with a drop and the successive Ninth Place finishes which followed under Claude puel and then Brennan Rogers was seen as a sign of progress and unlike pretty much every other team to finish ninth in the past 15 years briefly at least it was Leicester finished fifth in consecutive Seasons following their successive Ninth Place finishes even lifting an FA Cup in 2021 but the curse can only be resisted for so long sure enough last season the foxes were relegated despite having the highest wage Bill outside of the rich sex Stoke City three-peated finishing ninth as the Americans would say if you can three feet finishing ninth I'm not really sure between 2013 and 2016 making the position their own never in any danger of relegation but only once in any kind of European consumption Stokes season in any meaningful sense was effectively over by March Mark Hughes was the man responsible for all three of stoke's Ninth Place finishes at the club but a lot of stoke fans feel that he also Bears a great deal of responsibility for the club's rapid downfall over the next few years of course he doesn't actually it's just that once you finish ninth you are doomed and if you finish ninth Thrice well you're absolutely never mind it doesn't matter whether you've got Phil Neville or Pep Guardiola in charge it's just game over Stoke were relegated in 2018 and are yet to return to the Premier League Aston Villa and fulham's 9th Place finishes were a little bit different fulhams while creditable came as no great shock like Birmingham city or Sheffield United's they had been a mid-table team for the past three seasons and even reached the Europa League final in 2010. The Following season they finished mid-table once again but in 2013-14 they collapsed harder and faster that Iceland's banking system in 2008 some would say that losing Dimitar Berbatov and the disastrous appointments of Renee muellenstein and Felix mcgat were responsible for fulham's collapse and relegation but obviously we know that it was just because they had finished ninth and had therefore been condemned by the gods Villa in contrast to everyone else had finished six for three seasons on the bounce before falling to a Ninth Place finish in the 2010-11 season as the Martin O'Neill era came to an end for the next four years Villa only narrowly avoided relegation thanks largely to the goals of Christian benseke but in 2015-16 they were put out of their misery with one of the worst Premier League seasons of all time at this point just in the interest of full disclosure I should probably come clean and admit that I don't believe in curses or that by finishing ninth in the Premier League table Supernatural forces conspired select site with an eminent relegation is unavoidable apologies I probably should have opened with that I feel as though I've LED you all on for all of this time it is undeniably strange though that the fate of teams who finished ninth in the Premier League is so much worse than those who finish 8th 10th and even 11th over a long enough period so what is going on well a large factor which is it of itself quite odd is just that none of the big or Rich sex have finished ninth over the past 15 years Manchester United have finished seventh and sixth Thrice during that time Manchester City finished 10th in their first season of emirati ownership Arsenal have finished eighth twice Liverpool have finished sixth seventh and eighth Spurs have finished seventh and eighth twice and Chelsea have finished as low as 10th and 12th but never ninth that is just a coincidence or an anomaly if you like which strengthens The Ninth Place curses credentials but there is something bigger going on here I think the premier league has long had six clubs soon to be if not already seven with the addition of Newcastle United owned by the Saudi State who can't get relegated even in the most catastrophic season imaginable in which virtually everything that could go wrong does as was pretty much the case at Chelsea last season they still only finished 12th 10 points clear of the drop and it is unimaginable that they could be that bad again this season everyone else though regardless of how strong they might look in the presence is only ever one or two Bad seasons away from relegation Southampton Leicester Aston Villa and a pre-saudi Arab Newcastle United have all broken into not just the top half of the Premier League table but the division's top six since 2008 being hail build as the model of how to compete with the elite in all but probably newcastle's case but all four not long after that had been relegated that is the reality of English football the worst sex arguably now seven seems capable of competing for the biggest prizes on a consistent basis and 13 others who could go down each season if they take their eye off the ball the result is a fairly predictable and recurring cycle clubs recruit well their form improves and they finish in the top half of the ninth as it happens then they have one or two Bad seasons get relegated receive huge parachute payments are typically promoted again begin to look up the table and so the process starts all over again take Aston Villa who I recently made a video about documenting their rise and recent recruitment villarre perfectly placed to have a brilliant season and I suspect that they may well do just but we all know that they won't win the Premier League title and if they don't recruit so well next summer maybe someone comes and poaches unai Emery all of a sudden they are in big trouble once again it might feel distance or unlikely now with Villa looking in such healthy shape but so did wolves Leicester and West Ham just a few years ago so what's a make of Brentford who finished ninth last season and indeed Brighton who finished ninth a season before that well oddly these are the two hardest teams to say with certainty what I just said about Villa Lester and wolves similarly run by former business partners turned adversaries both Brentford and Brighton's success owes not only to the wealth and emotional Investments of their owners but also they're highly analytical and data-driven approaches to recruitment over the past decade no two teams in English football have done better transfer business than Brentford and Brighton who were League one rivals in the 2010-11 season for that reason because it is so methodical one could make the case that they are better immunized against the Ninth Place curse or just the Orthodox cycle of English football than just about anyone else but that is still no guarantee Brentford for example having lost Ivan Tony and almost certainly David Rye about the time this video comes out will be without arguably their two best players from their Ninth Place finish last season at the start of this campaign do I think they'll get relegated no probably not but it's hardly Unthinkable even Brighton who have strengthened yet again this summer following a superb season under Roberto De Zerbe are almost entirely dependent upon their owner Tony Bloom that is both their greatest strength since he's just about the only person at the club who Chelsea don't seem able to buy and well Liverpool I suppose and it means means that they can seemingly continue to improve indefinitely despite repeatedly losing their best players but it is also their biggest weakness when one imagines life after bloom Brighton are in over 300 million pounds of debt they are the fifth most indebted team in the Premier League despite having significantly less Revenue than all of the teams who are more indebted than that both financially and strategically they are reliant upon one man and as committed and capable as he may be and the answer to those seems to be both at this moment in time that's what separates them and everyone else from the rich sex and why I wouldn't even feel confident in predicting their fate over the next decade that is my theory at least as to why so many teams have finished ninth over the last 15 years have soon met a pretty disastrous fate well it's either that or the really is a curse anyway that is it for today's video I found it sting you know so I hope that you did too hit the like button if that was the case let me know your thoughts and your own theories if you have any down below in the comments and of course make sure that you're subscribed and have notifications turned on both of this Channel and my second Channel both of which should be on or about to appear on your screens now along with a couple of videos that you might fancy watching after this one you can also find me on Twitter or on Instagram via the 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Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 230,021

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Premier League, Curse, Brighton, Doomed, Cursed, Relegated, Relegation, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea, Tottenham, Wolves, Leeds United, Sheffield United, Championship, Teams, Clubs, Manchester United, 9th

Id: GrtjIloGanE

Length: 21min 56sec (1316 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2023