The Gap Between The Premier League & The Championship 

Hearing Chelsea referred to as "relegation candidates" brings a smile to my face

as a leicester fan i think for this season and this season only parachute payments are completely fine and there’s nothing flawed about the system at all

The description of Burnley's approaches last season and this reminds me pretty strongly of my own side, Norwich. We were twice promoted off the back of campaigns where we succeeded by knowing we could probably score more than we conceeded, then got found out in the Prem where we couldn't regularly outscore teams.

every club we (Burnley) have lost to this season are either in a European Competition or in the top 4, the team we drew against was away at Nottingham Forest, which on another day the goal could've easily stood and we'd have won, it's not the games against Man City or Spurs that'll define our season, it's games against the bottom half

Quick comparison, Burnley spent over 100 million this season, whereas in France, Le Havre and Metz won promotion, and spent 2.4 million and, I believe, 400,000 euros respectively.

It was a poor Championship last season. People got carried away with Burnley because of the way Kompany set up to play and how they ran away with the title but he's shown he's lacking tactically in the Premier League. And people only wanted Luton promoted because of the underdog mentality and because of how unusual their stadium is.

I'm a Luton fan and the Prem has honestly been an eye opener for me. I always knew there was a huge gap in class and quality between the two divisions, but it does feel enormous this season. As a side, we have improved, game on game and (ignoring last nights disaster in the Carabao Cup) are looking better every time we take to the pitch. We do, however, lack a proven Premier league striker which is definitely our weak point atm & our lack of goals from open play shows this to be the case. I can't see us surviving this season without that proven striker. I honestly don't believe that survival is our goal. We have a massive project in building a new stadium that is currently the board's priority, and we want to build it with as little debt as possible so we dont end up like Everton. Club sustainability comes before all else at Luton - hence our rigid wage structure and offering Barkley only a one year deal. Our recruitment, with this in mind, has been spot on - i dont believe any club has won promotion from the Championship with such a small budget and with so low a spend on transfers. We will happily take the ride this season, take the parachute payments, and spend within our means to aim at future Premier league promotions for years to come. The last ten years of our incredible rise from non-league has already shown that this is the correct approach for us.

Been watching Alfie since 2017 at this point as a little 14 year old, and 6 years on at 20, HITC Sevens is one of the only RU-vid channels that has stood the test of time in my recommended feed. Thanks Alfie for always giving some of the best football opinions and journalism on all of RU-vid. Keep doing what you’re doing bro!

Unfair to Burnley. 4 of their 5 fixtures were City, United, Spurs and Villa???

As a Southampton fan, 8-0 doesn't seem so bad.

Best German players in the premier league of all time. (Day 552) I will not give up until the video is made or Alfie himself tells me to stop. Everyone else telling me that will be ignored. If you don't believe my number, just go back to the previous videos. I'm at the bottom most of the time, but I'm there.

That 0-8 match had less to do with the standard of the Championship, and more to do with Sheff Utd giving up and throwing in the towel the moment it went 0-3. They stopped closing down and just gave up. They only lost 1-2 to Man City for perspective.

Chelsea being called "relegation candidates" is so surreal its funny lmfao

I think burnley especially have had very tough fixtures. Luton and Sheff U looks odds on for relegation but when you take into account burnleys fixtures and you analyse their actual performances i think theyll be fine. I also think it didnt help that the 3 relegated sides last seson were probably the 3 best relegated sides for a long time. I don't think the gap is that big.

As a Norwich fan i hate getting promoted to the Premier League. We never have the squad or finances to stay up and its just a cycle of up and down. Atleast in the Championship i can enjoy a game once in a while and maybe a good standard of football.

Chelseas masterplan is to get relegated to escape FFP

I love seeing these videos in the morning, they’re nice to watch while getting ready for work

Amazing video Alfie, also crazy to watch how, just like you said, the premier league mid table has like eroded (just like the middle class). Feels like you’re either in a Europe race, a relegation battle or you’re brentford.

Leeds have gone from conceding the most amount of goals ever in a PL calendar month last season to not having conceded a single goal in September across 4 games now that they are in the Championship.

I'm so glad you've made this video. This is something I think about so much. I always thought last season was the pinnacle in the sense that there I genuinely felt for the first time the 20 best teams in England were in the premier league.

In the Premier League unlike other leagues, mistakes are brutally punished. When a promoted club is completely unprepared for the brutality of the Premier League 9/10 they will go down and sometimes be so bad that they will be remembered for all the wrong reason. Look at Derby County and Huddlesfield Town. They are remembered as the worst Premier League squads in history and broke so many unwanted records in the process.

Some real trips down memory lane in some of your stock images in this video! In particular the shot of a crowd at Leeds Road, and the one of Phil Starbuck from 1994/95, made me feel rather old!

All 3 promoted teams stayed up last year. The gap didn't suddenly grow in the space of 5 months

Really good video. The bit about it reflecting society as a whole wasn't one I'd thought about and landed quite hard. I'd like to see you do a video or two about the Scottish top division. We've had the same champion, more or less, for a decade and 1985 was the last time we had a non old firm winner of the title. All of our young players get hoovered up by English teams who just want to fill squads depriving the division of scottish character and quality.

Just for context; What are the percentages of newly promoted teams going straight back down in La Liga, Serie A, Ligue Un and The Bundesliga over the last 30 years, last 10 years, last 5 years?

Voted and richly deserved recognition Mr Potts-Harmer! Quality football journalism and entertaining to boot ⚽️

After 6 games it's too early to condemn anyone to relegation. There is a discussion to be had about the imbalances in the leagues but perhaps wait till maybe 20/25 games to have some decent sample sizes..

Video Idea: Ipswich Town's insane start to the Championship season, a promoted side 2nd in League One to 2nd in the Championship, only behind Leicester on goal difference and beating Wolves in the Carabao Cup, they were expected to finish in mid-table and are challenging for the Championship title at this point. Edit: If not, do a similar thing with Preston, their Carabao Cup success isn't as prominent, but some predicted them to go down, and they're sitting just outside automatic promotion at the moment.

I think it’s fair to say that last seasons Premier League was the strongest ever. Two of the three promoted clubs were massively overpowered for the Championship the season before and the third, Forest, were as good as the other two in the second half of the 21/22 season. It’s safe to say that Forests survival last season was a gamble and I’d agree that without Cooper we’d have gone down. For what it’s worth, I can see Burnley just about surviving but mainly because Everton will finally fall through that trap door. Great video as always!

Tom davies was training with bristol rovers over the summer, when he joined Sheffield United some of our coaches were quoted in saying "he wasnt overly impressive and he wouldnt of looked out of place in league one" yet here he is gifting a goal to Alexander Isak in the PL........

LOVE ALL YOUR VIDEOS! YOU ARE SO WELL VERSED!!! 😊

Last few videos do not miss. Keep up the great work.

Won't lie as a Fulham fan. All this just reminds me what an incredible job Marco Silva did turning us into a proper premier league side over the summer. We didn't fall below 10th after like GW5.

Another great vid Alfie !

Great review. Your point about Forest says it all really. They've been absolutley clinical in what to do to bridge that gap quickly. Lambasted for having the temerity to do so, some fealt threatened a little that there's a way to join the 13 quickly. This season we're seing a change in their style of play, Psychically they're more than just competeting, they out muscling established opponents. Managers have to be adapable, and backed up with huge wealth, Marinakas. it's a priceless combination, very tricky to achieve. Also- yes, distributing that share of wealth the Champ is all well and good, but you'll see teams like derby absue it, and get HMRC and the tax payer to bail them out.... so I do understand the reluctance

Once again another great vid Alfie. As a west ham fan, we have had 3 great years. But it is chastening to know, we are one of the 13. Keep up the good work bro.

These in-depth videos are always quality

Can we have an updated “what on earth is going on at Scunthorpe United” following the national news coverage about them today and their owner…prime HITC Sevens content

I have noticed the top teams strengenthed, the middling teams caught up over the last 2 seasons quite a bit so now even teams 10th in the league are having aspirations of europe, it's definately the hardest year for a new team to try and break in

I really love your work, from Mozambique

Great vid as always, can your next big breakdown be on the state of English refereeing/var ?

Voted for you, hands down the most informed, logical and fair football content creator out there. As evidenced by the fact I agree with virtually everything you say!

Superb analysis (again)

Cheers Alfie!

This is the first time in a while that all three promoted teams have started like this. Usually, at least one of them overachieves, at least in their first year. In this case, we have three clubs that didn't spend what it took to meaningfully improve their squads.

Commented this on Prems IG page yesterday. Luton and Sheffield look so out of this league... The gap is indeed too large and the promoted teams think only at relegation and how to keep most of prem money, to save for their next promotion from championship next season...

Leicester accrued 102 points in 2013 beating Burnley, and Reading got 106 in 2006 and finished in the top 7 the following season.

P.S. I truly fear for the three promoted clubs. I thought one of those three would be fine while teams like Everton, Wolves and Bournemouth would be the one team to get relegated however I know it's early days but I never thought the three promoted teams would be hopelessly bad and either Sheffield United or Luton Town will rival Derby County and Huddlesfield Town as the worst team ever.

Its less of a chasm than the gap between the beginning of the intro and when you finally start the content on a HITC Sevens videos.

Bro said fellow relegation candidates Bournemouth, Wolves, Everton and Chelsea 😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣

Good shit as always lads

This is a very good video, well done.

Every time I look in my recommendations I see another banger video from this guy

when it comes to Chelsea, i do wonder, if it has something to do with that Promo tour they did, when other teams were busy properly preparing for the season... have you ever made a video about the relevance of season preperation?

Im so happy this 30 min beauty just dropped cuz i ran out of vids to watch ❤😅

Remarkable journalism man honestly

Hi Alfie, great video as always! Could you make a video about the remarkable rebirth of Feyenoord over the last 3 years?

Here's your reminder to vote for Alfie in the football content creator awards! Show your love for the constant hard work and great content that he puts out. As much as I enjoy the Irish guys content but it's very brainless and I usually play it as background noise and to see what weird outdated jokes he will make this time, Alfie puts such big effort and most of his videos are informing and thought provoking.

Luton Fan. I said before this season started that I don't care if we don't win a single game this season and go down with record low points, I'm happy to have made it, proud of the Team that got us there and i hope the board use any money we make on building the new stadium rather than anything else.

Alfie going absolutely in on Henderson ! Love it. As it should be. Telling us exactly how it is.

Yep, I think you've got it right. For now - of course it does change over time. As a Wolves supporter, I believe our consecutive 7th finishes were the best by any new promoted team in 20 years. But that was 5 years ago and Wolves are by now the warning for Brighton and Brentford, that it only takes a couple of bad decisions and you are down in that relegation battle. For the "Other 13", it's far far easier to throw it all away, than it is to get up to 8th or higher.

Brentford fan, hope we stay up this year. The injuries have taken their toll on us now, with Rico Henry and Kevin Schade out. People are massively overreacting about our recruitment, which I thought was actually very good this season, seems to be really unpopular. Nathan Collins was bad against Everton and all of a sudden his was the worst thing since the invasion of Iraq. Or people saying that Wissa couldn't possibly be tired in the last two games as it was the start of the season, despite him having to fly to France, then the DRC, then Johannesburg, then to London, then one day rest before catching a four and a half hour bus trip up to Newcastle.

0:20 “Fellow relegation candidates Bournemouth, Wolves, Everton and *CHELSEA”* Ah, the great pleasures of being a lifelong Chelsea fan 😂

Well done on the nomination Sir! Good luck too 🎉

“However Chelsea are giving it a red hot go……,” 😂😂😂 I love it & love the videos mate….sending love from AUS 👍

A video on how academy players are treated like commodities. Saw a stat seeing how few Prem academy players even make a proper career in the EFL.

As a Manchester City supporter for a LONG time, I maintain after going from the 3rd tier to 9th in a pretty short time and then 9th to top 5 that the gap between mid-40s and 9th is less than 9th to 5th. Its worth pointing out though over the last few years we have had a number of teams that have successfully come up and made themselves good mid-league sides.

I have faith in Burnley, they had rough start againts upper table teams but they still can score lots of points in upcoming games.

Good one Alfie, take it easy mate👍☯️☮️

I think in the cases of Luton and Sheffield, they both treated this year as a free hit and have other plans with their Premiership money. Burnley I think hedged their bets, buying a team that might be good enough. But if it isn't, will come straight back up next year.

Last season nine Premier League clubs were still in the relegation battle until a few weeks from the end of the season. This season, through the first five rounds of matches, teams in the bottom half of the Premier Leagues managed just two victories against top half opposition, while losing a whopping 28 times against them.

Alfie, your videos are very good and well researched. Do a video of the dominance of the premier league in europe

Always funny when people try and talk nonsense about clubs like Norwich and Luton for not being able to stay up. Luton have a legue one budget at best and Norwich have an owner worth just 20 million. Neither clubs stand any chance of staying up and if anything people should applade them for not being ran by oil states like so many souless big clubs

wish you could for a video on the gap between Manchester City and United and maybe a brief mention on how it was before.

I agree that usually championship teams need to be a bit more pragmatic for a few years at least when entering the premier league. Just look at how Brentford plays now compared to the championship days. They still play with intensity but they have given up possession and often score with just a couple of passes.

As you pointed out, Luton's goal for this season will be to bank the cash to allow them to build a new stadium.

I'm confident Burnley will finish comfortably above the relegation zone. We just need the new team to gel, get to grips with the league and play the other teams outside last season's top 6.

I definitely think there is a big gap but I think it's a bit early to see the gap is too large just because the 3 newly promoted teams look like they might be going down. Who knows what could happen by the end of the season, especially since last season all 3 promoted sides stayed up

Stoke, swansea, west brom all received parachute payments recently and havent looked anywhere near going up. Sheffield utd finished 9th in 19/20. Wolves 7th in their first season back. Watford were as high as 11th not too long ago too. It's the top 7 that just ruin it for everyone

0:25 haha Relegation candidates Chelsea. 😂😂and how serious he said that. Love it

Utter brilliance!! Make a video that appears to be about the gap between the EPL & the championship and really it’s the final nail in Chelsea’s coffin ⚰️ 😜

Day 1: Given the rebranding of Seattle Sounders. I suggest a video on football histories worst crests rebrandings (wouldn't be shocked if Columbus Crew is featured twice lol).

Love the Chelsea comment at the start 😂

Alfie, would you care to make a video on Argyle's return to the Championship after more than a decade? We're doing pretty well, considering we're essentially fielding last year's League One squad.

Excellent episode but in regards to the rich 7 who can’t be relegated. Whilst you could argue if they could be relegated or not now. Aston Villa’s owners combined wealth is the 5th highest.

And parachute payments to relegated clubs makes it worse as a lot of promoted clubs are yo-yo clubs (clubs the have recently been in the Premiership - Burnley & Sheffield United). So it's really hard for a club to get promoted and stay in the Premier League that has not been receiving parachute payments.

Also worth noting that Burnley and Luton have had a game against each other postponed - because Luton's stadium wasn't ready - so the table is a bit skewed against them both. Had either team won that game (I think Burnley would probably have done so had it been played) then the winning team would not be in the bottom 3 - although admittedly still in the bottom 4

Fact that before the start of the season, Burnley were tipped as the one team that would shock everyone and do wonders while they're on the way to become one of the worst teams in the league is insane

As a Forest fan I'd not quite agree with your sentiment that the biggest difference between the 2 divisions is ruthless finishing. I think it's a big difference without a doubt. But I'd argue that the biggest difference between a prem player and a champ player is speed of thought or decision making, and specifically how a prem player will make better decisions faster, more regularly. Thisngs just happen much faster. The difference in athleticism is also huge. Technique-wise, I think the difference is still big but not as big as those other factors, there are tons of highly technically skilled players in the 2nd tier, but they just don't use their skills as quickly or chain touches or passes together at the same pace. It's the speed of application that separates them, which mostly comes from the decision-making, and to a slightly lesser extent the athleticism that really makes the difference. I guess you could also say this points to prem coaches and managers giving the players a framework to play in that buys the players a little more time, also.

best late night videos for me

Some people were saying Luton will break Derby County's lowest points record. But if it goes like this, I think 3 or 4 teams will break that record as well

One thing that's happened is that the race to the top (or seemingly limitless cash) has created something where the bottom is just cut adrift. Maybe it's law of averages or watching football outside England, but if the relegation races involve a lot of teams and aren't cut adrift of the title races, then either the top teams either aren't that good, being held back thanks to artificial parity enforcement (yay sports entertainment), or the title race is actually pretty well-defined and set into stone.

“What is going on at Ajax” needed!

I'm a Sheffield United fan but I am also pragmatic and realised last season that the club were in no shape to be competing in the Premier League both on and off the pitch. What Paul Heckingbottom had done is nothing short of miraculous given the resources available to him, but relegation seems inevitable, as Alfie points out in this video, they are undoubtedly in worse shape this season than they were last season. I think it's a generalisation to say that there is a big gap between the top of the Championship and the bottom half of the Premier League and you have to look at it on a case by case basis, if teams are prepared well enough there is no reason why they can't prosper in the Premier League.

Interesting. I did enjoy it, so since that is the case, I must now hit the like button. It's the rules. 🤷‍♀️

I legit thought Hull city’s coach was Memphis depay for two seconds. 10:38😅

10/10 video 💯

Burnley and Luton Town are doing horrible. I feel bad for them, I wanted them to do well.

As a forest fan I don't think any of the promo clubs have spent enough, last season's relegation battle was between some pretty decent teams that are vastly better than the current batch

You've got my vote Alfie. Everyone in the comments, GO VOTE FOR ALFIE!