Before the season began, many had tipped Leeds United to be relegated. The trend in recent years has been that newly-promoted teams go straight back down.
So Leeds, Sunderland and Burnley were already ruled out of surviving the league before a ball was even kicked.
And fast forward to the end of the season, two of the three have managed to do the impossible. Leeds United and Sunderland have survived and will be in the top flight next season.
While Wolves and West Ham were relegated. Wolves had been confirmed early in the season, but the Hammers had their fate decided on the final day.
Even though Nuno Espirito Santo’s managed to beat the Whites, they still went down.
Gary Neville hails Leeds United feat
Sunderland and Leeds United manage to beat the odds this season, and they did it in very different ways.
The Black Cats had a super start to the season and picked up so many points before the halfway point. Then they dipped in form, but returned to their best in the final weeks of the season to finish 7th.
Leeds on the other hand had some massive ups and downs and were inconsistent for most of the campaign. Their turnaround came just before the end of last year, which put them in a great position to survive.
Gary Neville said on the Gary Neville Podcast that it is a very good thing that Leeds and Sunderland have stayed up this season.
”Those clubs [Sunderland and Leeds] have done brilliantly well, the two of them stay up this year.”
”What Sunderland and Leeds have done this year is really important.”
”We’ve seen Leeds United. We’ve seen Nottingham Forest, we’ve seen Sheffield Wednesday. These were stalwarts, in my opinion, of sort of what would be the old division one when I was growing up.”
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How Sunderland and Leeds achieved this
The key to both teams’ campaigns was signing well in the summer.
Both clubs had very solid recruitment during the transfer window. They both brought in key first team starters who played at a Premier League level.
Sunderland got players like Granit Xhaka, Brian Brobbey and former Leeds target Noah Sadiki among other players.
The Whites on the other hand brought in Jaka Bijol, Anton Stach and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
In the Premier League, you can level the playing field by doing smart signings and these two clubs have showed the way forward.
