Which football team has been relegated from the Premier League most often?

The Premier League was founded, as the ‘FA Premier League’, on May 27, 1992, replacing the old First Division as the top flight of English football. Since the very first Premier League campaign in 1992/93, four teams – namely Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion – have suffered relegation on four separate occasions. However, the team that has been relegated from the Premier League most often is Norwich City which, in 2019/20, achieved the dubious distinction of being demoted for the fifth.

If we were talking games of chance we’d soon start thinking that it’s time for ‘our luck to change’. How many times with we seen a player at the roulette wheel betting against a certain colour (red for instance) coming up because ‘surely’ it’s about time for the other colour to come in (black). This applies in bricks and mortar situations as well as real money online casino games. Of course in gambling though these are entirely separate events, not more likely dependent on the previous results. This is known as the gamblers fallacy and is understandable on account that the brain looks for patterns.

I can’t help feeling that Norwich, although at least somewhat in control of their own destiny when compared to a game of chance, must be wondering if lady luck has left the building considering their fortunes when in the relegation zone in decent years. Will the 2021 – 2022 season for different for them? We’ll soon get a feel of how it’s going.

Ironically, in the inaugural season of the Premier League the Canaries achieved their highest-ever league finish, third, behind Manchester United and Aston Villa, with 72 points. However, two seasons later, in 1994/95, they won just one of their last twenty matches, finished twentieth and were relegated to the Football League First Division, where they would spend the next nine seasons.

Norwich City were promoted, as champions, in 2003/04, but made an immediate return to the First Division, albeit rebranded as the ‘Championship’, in 2004/05. After another four years in the second tier, the club was further demoted to the third tier, League One, for the first time since being promoted from the old Football League Third Division in 1959/60, in 2008/09. Nevertheless, after successive promotions under Paul Lambert, appointed manager in August 2009, the Canaries regained Premier League in 2011/12. Thereafter, they have yo-yoed back and forth between the Premier League and the Championship, being relegated from the top flight again in 2013/14, 2015/16 and 2019/20.

At time of writing, in the 2021-22 Premier League, Norwich City have played just one game, and unfortunately for them it was a 3-0 trouncing away to Manchester City. Granted Man City are potential title winners but it’s hard to escape the fact that Norwich are once again on the back foot and near the bottom of the table. They will be hoping for a little more success in their upcoming games. They next play Bournemouth, then Leicester City, the Arsenal. Not the easiest starting selection of games, so they will be hoping to at least get ‘something’ from one or two of these games. Fingers crossed for them.