Post by Norah on May 4, 2016 9:35:38 GMT
Do Wigan show that the gap between League One and the Championship is widening?
Ben Wheatland May 3, 2016 Championship, Football League, League One, Wigan Athletic 548 Views
Wigan Athletic look set to be crowned League One champions for the 2015-16 season. With one game remaining, the Latics sit three points ahead of surprise package Burton Albion and with a far superior goal-difference.
Embed from Getty Images
This is probably not a surprise, as Wigan have only just been relegated from the Championship and with a recent legacy of Premier League football, they were many pundits’ favourites for promotion at the beginning of the season. But more than that, Wigan’s rise back to the second tier marks the continuation of a trend that has started to emerge over the past seven or eight seasons. Since Scunthorpe United won the League One title in 2006-07, every team (bar two, Brighton and Swansea) to have won the division had recently been relegated from the Championship.
It seems an obvious thing to say, but teams dropping down into the third division have tended to bounce straight back to the second very quickly – the obvious exceptions being clubs that have suffered severe financial difficulties like Portsmouth, Plymouth and Luton.
It is often said that the gap between the Premier League and the Championship is getting wider, although recent performances by newly promoted clubs; not to mention Leicester City’s heroics this season, suggest that this particular gap might actually be closing. But whilst Championship clubs enjoy the majority of the hand-outs that the Premier League gives out in the forms of parachute payments, very little of this money trickles down to the bottom two divisions of league football. I would argue that, rather than fixing the gap between Premier League and Championship, it is instead shunting the problem further down the pyramid, and this disparity in wealth and opportunity is now most apparent in the gap between League One and the Championship.
As a broad-stroke starting point, it is clear that newly promoted clubs to the Premier League are becoming better able to deal with life in the top division. Clubs like Watford, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, and West Brom are able to survive relatively comfortably in the top division, and even have squads capable of challenging for cup competitions as well. Taking this further, relatively new additions to the Premier League, clubs like West Ham, Southampton, Swansea and Leicester, are even able to make waves at the top end of the division.
Embed from Getty Images
There are still strugglers, but this is now more than ever down to poor management in general, rather than a disparity in resources, and teams as poor as Derby in 2007-08 are becoming increasingly rare. Norwich, and before them Burnley and Hull, have proven how best to exploit the money coming in from the Premier League’s riches, using the influx in cash to build themselves incrementally, rather than going for broke and ending up in a nosedive.
Similarly, teams promoted from League Two to League One seem capable of holding their own after promotion, at least until the momentum that promotion brings wears off. Last season saw Burton, Bury, Southend and Shrewsbury take the step up. Of those clubs, Burton seem likely to gain a second successive promotion, Southend have consistently challenged for the promotion play-offs, and Bury are comfortably mid-table. Only Shrewsbury have struggled, but even they now seem sure to enjoy a second season in the third-tier.
Nevertheless, this ability for a club to hold its own after a promotion is not replicated with clubs making the jump up to the Championship – or to be more accurate, smaller clubs without large financial backing or sizeable fan bases and stadia making the jump to the second tier have consistently struggled after promotion.
Scunthorpe have been up to the Championship but have been unable to sustain their position there for longer than one or two years at a time. Yeovil Town enjoyed an almost miraculous promotion in 2012-13, but were immediately relegated. Similarly, Peterborough and MK Dons; both clubs with big ambitions but without the infrastructure, fan base and/or sugar daddy necessary to survive for long periods in the Championship have come back to League One pretty quickly. Barring another outstanding year, Burton Albion might well also be looking at a long 2016-17 season.
Contrast these teams to clubs that have spent time in the Premier League and/or long stints in the Championship and who then get relegated, and the trend is very different. Whilst it may take a Swindon or a Walsall years of building to make it to the Championship, bigger clubs do not have to try anywhere near as hard. Leeds spent only three seasons in League One before regaining their Championship status, whilst clubs like Wolves, Leicester, Norwich and Bristol City have all managed to gain promotion immediately after relegation, usually as champions.
Moreover, whilst it is easier for these clubs to return to the Championship, they are also much less likely to drop back down again. Leicester, Southampton and Norwich have more than survived after making their returns. The Foxes are ridiculously the champions elect of the Premier League, Southampton are now regularly pushing for European competitions, and whilst Norwich are becoming a yo-yo club, they are always expected to be one of the promotion contenders whenever they are in the Championship. Other clubs, like Wolves and Brighton, have returned to being seemingly permanent fixtures in the second tier, and Brighton are even on the verge of Premier League promotion.
Whilst it perhaps should be expected that bigger clubs dropping down divisions are better equipped to gain instant promotion the following year, nowhere is this becoming the norm more obviously than in League One. Smaller clubs are becoming less and less able to gate-crash the promotion picture (this year being a relative anomaly, due to a smaller than normal pool of ‘bigger’ clubs in the division), with only one or two examples in recent years where smaller clubs have been able to upset the odds.
Embed from Getty Images
Is this the end of real competition in English football’s third tier? Can we fans of smaller clubs only now hope for a one off season where our team upsets the odds and achieves an unlikely play-off spot or surprise promotion, whilst the bigger clubs argue amongst themselves about who gets promoted this year?
Or, is it only a matter of time before the trickle down of money, which is likely to increase with the new TV deal that is about to come into force in the Premier League, starts to affect clubs in League One and allows smaller clubs to again challenge the bigger ones? Would this actually be a good thing if it did happen?
The implication would be that the gap between League Two and League One would increase, and would represent the authorities simply shunting the problem off on someone else. Eventually, this trickle down may benefit football as a whole as the money reaches the clubs that are desperately in need of it.
For now though, hopes of promotion to the Championship (and beyond that, survival in the second tier) are becoming further and further away for the little guys in League One.
Featured Image: All rights reserved by Dan Farrimond
tbrfootball.com/do-wigan-show-that-the-gap-between-league-one-and-the-championship-is-widening/?
Ben Wheatland May 3, 2016 Championship, Football League, League One, Wigan Athletic 548 Views
Wigan Athletic look set to be crowned League One champions for the 2015-16 season. With one game remaining, the Latics sit three points ahead of surprise package Burton Albion and with a far superior goal-difference.
Embed from Getty Images
This is probably not a surprise, as Wigan have only just been relegated from the Championship and with a recent legacy of Premier League football, they were many pundits’ favourites for promotion at the beginning of the season. But more than that, Wigan’s rise back to the second tier marks the continuation of a trend that has started to emerge over the past seven or eight seasons. Since Scunthorpe United won the League One title in 2006-07, every team (bar two, Brighton and Swansea) to have won the division had recently been relegated from the Championship.
It seems an obvious thing to say, but teams dropping down into the third division have tended to bounce straight back to the second very quickly – the obvious exceptions being clubs that have suffered severe financial difficulties like Portsmouth, Plymouth and Luton.
It is often said that the gap between the Premier League and the Championship is getting wider, although recent performances by newly promoted clubs; not to mention Leicester City’s heroics this season, suggest that this particular gap might actually be closing. But whilst Championship clubs enjoy the majority of the hand-outs that the Premier League gives out in the forms of parachute payments, very little of this money trickles down to the bottom two divisions of league football. I would argue that, rather than fixing the gap between Premier League and Championship, it is instead shunting the problem further down the pyramid, and this disparity in wealth and opportunity is now most apparent in the gap between League One and the Championship.
As a broad-stroke starting point, it is clear that newly promoted clubs to the Premier League are becoming better able to deal with life in the top division. Clubs like Watford, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, and West Brom are able to survive relatively comfortably in the top division, and even have squads capable of challenging for cup competitions as well. Taking this further, relatively new additions to the Premier League, clubs like West Ham, Southampton, Swansea and Leicester, are even able to make waves at the top end of the division.
Embed from Getty Images
There are still strugglers, but this is now more than ever down to poor management in general, rather than a disparity in resources, and teams as poor as Derby in 2007-08 are becoming increasingly rare. Norwich, and before them Burnley and Hull, have proven how best to exploit the money coming in from the Premier League’s riches, using the influx in cash to build themselves incrementally, rather than going for broke and ending up in a nosedive.
Similarly, teams promoted from League Two to League One seem capable of holding their own after promotion, at least until the momentum that promotion brings wears off. Last season saw Burton, Bury, Southend and Shrewsbury take the step up. Of those clubs, Burton seem likely to gain a second successive promotion, Southend have consistently challenged for the promotion play-offs, and Bury are comfortably mid-table. Only Shrewsbury have struggled, but even they now seem sure to enjoy a second season in the third-tier.
Nevertheless, this ability for a club to hold its own after a promotion is not replicated with clubs making the jump up to the Championship – or to be more accurate, smaller clubs without large financial backing or sizeable fan bases and stadia making the jump to the second tier have consistently struggled after promotion.
Scunthorpe have been up to the Championship but have been unable to sustain their position there for longer than one or two years at a time. Yeovil Town enjoyed an almost miraculous promotion in 2012-13, but were immediately relegated. Similarly, Peterborough and MK Dons; both clubs with big ambitions but without the infrastructure, fan base and/or sugar daddy necessary to survive for long periods in the Championship have come back to League One pretty quickly. Barring another outstanding year, Burton Albion might well also be looking at a long 2016-17 season.
Contrast these teams to clubs that have spent time in the Premier League and/or long stints in the Championship and who then get relegated, and the trend is very different. Whilst it may take a Swindon or a Walsall years of building to make it to the Championship, bigger clubs do not have to try anywhere near as hard. Leeds spent only three seasons in League One before regaining their Championship status, whilst clubs like Wolves, Leicester, Norwich and Bristol City have all managed to gain promotion immediately after relegation, usually as champions.
Moreover, whilst it is easier for these clubs to return to the Championship, they are also much less likely to drop back down again. Leicester, Southampton and Norwich have more than survived after making their returns. The Foxes are ridiculously the champions elect of the Premier League, Southampton are now regularly pushing for European competitions, and whilst Norwich are becoming a yo-yo club, they are always expected to be one of the promotion contenders whenever they are in the Championship. Other clubs, like Wolves and Brighton, have returned to being seemingly permanent fixtures in the second tier, and Brighton are even on the verge of Premier League promotion.
Whilst it perhaps should be expected that bigger clubs dropping down divisions are better equipped to gain instant promotion the following year, nowhere is this becoming the norm more obviously than in League One. Smaller clubs are becoming less and less able to gate-crash the promotion picture (this year being a relative anomaly, due to a smaller than normal pool of ‘bigger’ clubs in the division), with only one or two examples in recent years where smaller clubs have been able to upset the odds.
Embed from Getty Images
Is this the end of real competition in English football’s third tier? Can we fans of smaller clubs only now hope for a one off season where our team upsets the odds and achieves an unlikely play-off spot or surprise promotion, whilst the bigger clubs argue amongst themselves about who gets promoted this year?
Or, is it only a matter of time before the trickle down of money, which is likely to increase with the new TV deal that is about to come into force in the Premier League, starts to affect clubs in League One and allows smaller clubs to again challenge the bigger ones? Would this actually be a good thing if it did happen?
The implication would be that the gap between League Two and League One would increase, and would represent the authorities simply shunting the problem off on someone else. Eventually, this trickle down may benefit football as a whole as the money reaches the clubs that are desperately in need of it.
For now though, hopes of promotion to the Championship (and beyond that, survival in the second tier) are becoming further and further away for the little guys in League One.
Featured Image: All rights reserved by Dan Farrimond
tbrfootball.com/do-wigan-show-that-the-gap-between-league-one-and-the-championship-is-widening/?
