Too good to go down? Ranking shock Premier League relegations

Atletico Madrid 2000. Juventus 2005. River Plate 2011. See also Corinthians, Deportivo La Coruna, Sampdoria, Marseille.

From financial mismanagement to scandals, awful decision-making to just dreadful form – across the footballing globe, big clubs do go down.

Tottenham Hotspur, though, with a world-class arena, elite training centre, roll-away pitch and pints that fill up from the bottom, would surely be the Premier League’s all-time shock relegation.

So with things getting dicey in north London, we’re looking at the most surprising clubs to drop since the competition began in 1992.

Nottingham Forest 1992-93 Position: 20 Points: 40

Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest had been league champions and clinched back-to-back European Cups. Even as the Premier League era began, they were perennial cup finalists – winning League Cups in 1989 and 1990.

And things started brightly in August 1992, Teddy Sheringham scoring the only goal as Forest beat Liverpool during Sky Sports’ first Super Sunday broadcast.

Only Sheringham was then sold to Spurs – another big departure for Forest, who had already lost Des Walker to Sampdoria.

QPR – 2012-13 – Position: 20th. Points: 25

Queens Park Rangers’ demise was less nostalgia-tinged decline and more a combustible two-season spell fuelled by big reputations earning bigger bucks.

QPR narrowly survived their first term back in the Premier League, despite the drama-filled final-day “Aguerooo!” moment, and proceeded to hoover up veterans – Park Ji-Sung from Manchester United, Jose Bosingwa from Chelsea, ex-England internationals Rob Green and Jermaine Jenas.

They forked out for Esteban Granero from Real Madrid, Christopher Samba from Anzhi and Loic Remy from Marseille. Even Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar swapped San Siro for Loftus Road.

Mark Hughes started the season, but Harry Redknapp was in the dugout come the end of a campaign in which QPR registered just four league wins.

Wigan 2012-13 – Position: 18. Points 36

Wigan also went down that season, but did so as FA Cup winners. Perhaps the quirkiest fortnight in football peaked for Roberto Martinez’s side when Ben Watson flicked a 91st-minute header beyond Manchester City stopper Joe Hart to send Wigan fans wild at Wembley.

Four days later, the Latics were waving goodbye to an eight-year top-flight stint with an inevitable defeat at Arsenal.

Aston Villa 2015-16 – Position: 20. Points 17

Talking of FA Cup finals, it was gilet out, shirt and tie in as Tim Sherwood led Aston Villa to Wembley in 2015, his tactics “bamboozling” Liverpool en route before a heavy final defeat by Arsenal.

Sherwood also steered Villa away from the drop but, shorn of influential stars Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph in the summer, was sacked after six successive defeats left them bottom in October.

Kevin Macdonald, briefly, Remi Garde and Eric Black all had a stab at getting a tune from the young prospects Villa reinvested in but, with ownership issues rumbling, the club – one of only seven Premier League ever-presents at the time – dropped out of the top flight for the first time since 1988.

Middlesbrough 1996-97 – Position: 19th. Points 39

Silver hair shimmering in the Teesside sunshine, the sight of Fabrizio Ravanelli celebrating a debut hat-trick against Liverpool – months after scoring in Juventus’ Champions League triumph – had Middlesbrough fans dreaming.

Throw in Brazilian trio Juninho, Emerson and Branco, with Bryan Robson in the dugout, and the Riverside faithful felt they could win the lot.

They almost did an FA and League Cup double, losing both finals, but those dazzling runs could not be replicated in the league.

Ravanelli, reportedly the highest-paid man in the league, scored at almost the same rate he bemoaned the club’s professionalism in the Italian press, suggesting Juventus coaches were having to fax him fitness plans.

Emerson went missing, his wife not very complimentary about Teesside.

Blackburn 1998-99 – Position: 19th. Points 35

“They’re down? They needed a win tonight? I thought they needed a point,” confessed a shocked Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson after a goalless draw with Blackburn, and his former assistant Brian Kidd, confirmed Rovers’ relegation.

David Beckham said Blackburn didn’t deserve it. Kenny Dalglish reflected on a sad day. Jack Walker, the man who bankrolled Rovers’ Premier League title four years earlier, was tearful in the Ewood Park terraces.

Leicester 2022-23 – Position: 18th. Points 34

Leicester City are the only other members of the undesirable ‘Premier League champions to be relegated’ club. The Foxes just threw an FA Cup triumph in between for good measure.

Odds on the drop were not quite as high as Claudio Ranieri’s boys dilly-donging their way to a miracle title seven years earlier – and major protagonists like N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez and Danny Drinkwater had long been picked off – but relegation was still a shock.

Newcastle 2008-09 – Position: 18th Points: 34

In their hour of need, Newcastle turned to a hometown hero. The man who’d given them so much, whose goals lit up the Gallowgate, whose iconic celebration would one day be immortalised in bronze outside St James’ Park.

If anyone could save the Toon, sports store tycoon Mike Ashley reasoned, it was Alan Shearer.

But, with eight games to go, the task was too much. Shearer was Newcastle’s fourth manager of a season that began with Kevin Keegan resigning over the club’s summer transfer business. Fan fury fixed on owner Ashley and executive director Dennis Wise.

Leeds 2003-04 – Position:19th Points: 33

On Saturday mornings in South Korea, you can tune in for a weekly dose of “Leeds Era Once Again”, a TV show aimed at helping contestants rediscover their heyday.

It evolved from a popular Korean term, ‘Leeds Days’, which – you may have guessed – has roots at Elland Road, particularly with Alan Smith, the bottle-blonde forward who never quite rediscovered his fledgling form after joining Manchester United.

Perhaps more pertinent is the footballing idiom ‘doing a Leeds’, which addresses the Whites’ fall during that era from the dizzying heights of a Champions League semi-final to relegation three years later.

Overspending cost them dearly – making Rio Ferdinand the world’s most expensive defender, splashing out on Robbie Keane, Mark Viduka, Robbie Fowler and others – and saw the club eventually spiral into League One.

West Ham 2002-03 – Position: 18th. Points 42

Times were good at Upton Park. Having finished seventh the previous season, Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier tipped West Ham to reach the Champions League and, despite selling Ferdinand to Leeds, they boasted a homegrown core after winning the FA Youth Cup in 1999.

Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, Michael Carrick and Glen Johnson were complemented by enigmatic genius Paolo di Canio, and internationals Frederic Kanoute, David James, Trevor Sinclair, Tomas Repka and Christian Dailly.

Even as injuries, suspensions and Di Canio falling out with boss Glenn Roeder saw them trickle surprisingly into the drop zone, the consensus was this side were too good to go down.

The Hammers only lost one of their final 11 games – at Bolton – they took 25 points from their last 14 outings to reach 42 overall and finish 16 points above 19th-placed West Brom. But that was two shy of Sam Allardyce’s Wanderers.