What you need to survive in the EPL..............
Oct 20, 2021
I recently took a look at the results of every club that finished between 10th and 17th place in the Premier League in the last five years, so we are talking about 40 teams, all of whom survived. They lost between 13-21 games (three teams lost 21 games which is over 55% and stayed up) and it took me a while to get my head around that as it feels like such an enormous number of losses, but such is the quality of opposition and difficulty of taking three points .
I think it is worth revisiting and thinking a little about that.
I wrote a short article around that topic last month and speculated that it is one of the big adjustments that promoted teams have to make, old EPL survival hands know what they need to do, that defeats are inevitable and they can more easily accept them and move on. Promoted teams are used to winning and to then perhaps view losing 5/9 games as a "success" and without panic setting in, is incredibly difficult, especially when you are playing a third of your games against teams who view missing out on top 4 and a Champions League place as major failure and the rest are at least as hungry as you and all probably have bigger budgets as established top flight clubs.
Three teams are winless and have lost 5-6 games each, but if they can press the reset button and think, ok, still 30 games to play and even if we lose half we could still survive, to my mind it is both realistic and healthier, to see that as a positive, to look forward and learn from, but not dwell on ,previous mistakes, however, it is not easy.
Of the three clubs who came up from the Championship last season, Norwich City are still waiting for that first win after eight games, Watford have performed a little better, but are already on head coach #2 for the season and have lost their last two starts by a combined 6-0 and only Brentford have thrived, with 12 points on board and with an xP placing of top 5, which will delight all involved at the analytics obsessed club (although they are about far more than just that). They do things differently, had clear ideas about what was needed to succeed in the top flight and recruited and adapted accordingly . I would be surprised if they had not also spoken to players at length about handling the inevitable setbacks, you do not have a "sleep coach" for example and then ignore the more obvious mental side(s) of the game.
BTW, I understand that the Bees have the smallest salary bill in the top flight, which is not really a secret, but that it is said to be half that of the next lowest (Norwich City ?) , which is quite remarkable , but then, we already know that they are smarter than the rest !
Good luck !
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