Matt Maher: Tony Mowbray was right to highlight stark reality for clubs with Premier League aspirations
For most of football’s history any manager who questioned the benefit of winning promotion would have been accused of defeatism.
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It says plenty, then, that Tony Mowbray’s observations on the gulf which now exists between the Championship and Premier League was greeted with almost universal head nodding.
Albion’s boss chose the aftermath of last weekend’s encouraging 1-1 draw at Leeds to question the value of the prize both clubs are chasing, putting into words thoughts many had been thinking.
Leeds are both odds-on to be this year’s champions and next year’s Premier League cannon fodder, their coffers set to be boosted by top-flight riches, albeit attached with the increasingly tricky condition of just how you secure more than a one season stay?
Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton, the three clubs who came up from the second tier last spring, do not appear to have the answer. For the second season running it looks likely the three promoted teams will be relegated straight back down, having fallen even further short of survival than the previous year’s trio.
Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton were widely considered the weakest three teams to come up and that is precisely how it played out, with them combining for the lowest points-per-game average for relegated teams ever recorded.
But just 12 months on, Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton are on course to beat that unwanted record, having combined for just nine total wins and a points-per-game average of just 0.53. The Saints may yet usurp Derby County by recording the lowest ever points total in a Premier League campaign.
