Three games, three days and three degrees of desperation, a tragical misery tour that leads from Suffolk to London and on to the East Midlands. Roll up for a relegation road trip featuring Ipswich Town, Southampton and Leicester City, clubs promoted to the Premier League last season and now going, gone and almost certainly going, who have found the promised land to be harsh and infertile.
Elsewhere, England’s top division offers difference. After six titles in seven years, Manchester City are fifth. Nottingham Forest stand third. Smaller, well-run clubs like Brighton, Fulham and Bournemouth nestle inside the top-ten, while traditional giants like Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur flail in the bottom half. Even perennial non-winners Newcastle United have won the League Cup.
At the grisly end of the table, the story is old. The bottom three clubs are the same three clubs that came up last May, replicating what happened the season before, when Luton Town, Burnley and Sheffield United were promoted and then relegated. If Ipswich and Leicester follow Southampton and succumb — strong vibes: they will — it will be the first time in the Premier League era that this has happened in consecutive seasons.
The trio of clubs vying for two automatic promotion positions at the top of the Championship have a familiar ring, too. Burnley lead, with Sheffield United and Leeds United, who took their leave of the Premier League in 2023, next in line. An obvious theory: the base of one league and the pinnacle of the other is purgatory, a ghost division inhabited by teams not good enough to be good enough.
Ipswich, who were led to successive promotions by Kieran McKenna, demonstrate that smart outsiders still have a route to the top, as do Luton (caveat: they are now second-bottom of the Championship), while Forest, Bournemouth and Fulham all came up in 2021-22 and are thriving. It can be done and has been, at least until now, when it can’t and isn’t. When what goes up, comes plummeting straight back down.
Is this a trend or a quirk? A weekend in April, when the south of the country is bathed in spring sunshine, brings three more defeats and confirmation of Southampton’s demise, which is followed swiftly by Monday’s dismissal of their head coach. The tenure of Ivan Juric lasted 108 days and brought four points; his 0.29 points-per-game average is lower than any other manager to have worked in the Premier League for 10 games or more.
Leicester find an unsubtle way to outdo them, their eighth home loss in a row without scoring a goal uncharted territory in English league history but wasteland, nonetheless. Since the turn of the year, they, Ipswich and Southampton have won once each in the league. These matches volunteer plenty of loveless firsts and worsts.
For the second straight season, the newbies have been swatted aside.
Saturday April 5: Ipswich Town 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2
At 2.55pm on Saturday, Portman Road does not smell of fear or resignation. Hope is in the air, which turns out to be just as painful. The sun brings heat, players take to the pitch to the sound of Insomnia by Faithless, there are flame effects and fireworks, fans are singing “Blue Army,” and Ipswich begin with energy. It is the type of atmosphere which nurtures possibility.
Ipswich fans on their way to Portman Road on Saturday (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Ipswich are not jaded. After 22 years outside the Premier League, including three seasons in the third tier, this is understandable. Outside and along the Sir Bobby Robson stand, tributes to one of the club’s greatest managers are interspersed with pivotal matches from last season. “You think Ipswich Town are going to wither away … Think again,” one poster reads. Two years ago, they were playing Wycombe, Cheltenham and Exeter.
There is a palpable feeling of magnitude. A heft. The sports section of the East Anglian Daily Times is not in the market for clever headlines: “Biggest game of the season,” it says over a full page. Inside, the equation is stark. “It’s brutally simple … Fail to beat Wolves today and Town are as good as relegated.” “There’s still belief,” McKenna had said the day before.
Having beaten Bournemouth 2-1 the previous Wednesday, Ipswich are hunting back-to-back wins. McKenna, who was being linked strongly with managerial posts at Manchester United, Brighton and Chelsea 11 months ago, names an unchanged side for the first time this season.
Wolves are the team immediately above them but are nine points clear. If it is going to happen, it needs to happen right here, right now, to borrow from the Fatboy Slim anthem which swirls around the ground as the players coagulate in the tunnel. They start with purpose and confidence. A drummer thrums out a steady rhythm from the stands.
Wolves are easing into it — their fans amuse themselves with chants of “Ed Sheeran is a wanker,” (the singer-songwriter is an avid follower of Ipswich) — when Liam Delap scores his 12th goal of a breakthrough campaign, sweeping in a knock-back from Dara O’Shea. In front of the dug-out, McKenna raises his right arm and gently pumps a fist towards the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.
Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna applauds the Ipswich fans (Alex Broadway/Getty Images)
This would be the zenith, a crescendo of noise. Nine points are now six and the great escape is on. There are other moments; Julio Enciso tracking back to tackle Joao Gomes and celebrating like a gladiator, a guttural, earth-shaking roar when Ipswich somehow clear a Wolves free-kick from six yards out after, but they are increasingly sketchy and vulnerable.
As Alan Shearer puts it on ‘Match of the Day’ later, Ipswich’s defence has been “hopeless all season,” and after seven minutes of added time when the final whistle goes, six points becomes 12 and the scoreline reads 2-1 to Wolves, whose fans are crowing “We are staying up.” It is no travesty. Sam Morsy briefly drops to his knees, Enciso leads a bedraggled lap of appreciation.
Ipswich have not been up to it; not today, not this season and not here in particular — an 11th league defeat at home is also their sixth in succession, matching a club record set in 1963. “Gutted,” McKenna says afterwards. “It’s a sad dressing-room and a sad ground. Today is a setback and it hurts. The likelihood is that we’re going to fall short of our ultimate dream.”
Vitor Pereira, the Wolves manager, shakes his head at that suggestion. No, he insists, his side are not safe. “I don’t want to hear this kind of conversation inside of my dressing-room because it is the first step to making mistakes,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of moments of suffering in my career and this league can surprise you.”
Can, but won’t; Wolves, with far more experience and quality, have won three games in a row and Pereira spends the evening in The Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton city centre, posting for selfies, which does not quite match the solemn tone.
(Alex Broadway/Getty Images)
What relegation might mean for Ipswich, for McKenna, for the much-coveted Delap and others, can only be opaque. “There’s a really bright future for the club if we keep showing the same values,” McKenna says. He praises players who have “given everything. A lot of have come on the journey from League One.” They have also spent in the region of £126 million since last summer, according to Kieran Maguire, the football finance expert.
Falling and rising again is baked into Ipswich’s DNA. Do they, can they, go again?
Sunday April 6: Tottenham Hotspur 3 Southampton 1
For a true evocation of dismay, where better to head than the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium? Two hours before kick off, outside The Trampery, a couple of hundred fans are demonstrating and chanting “Time for a change.” A banner stretches across the street: “Built a business, killed a football club,” it reads.
There are not many happy fans at Tottenham on Sunday (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
For the avoidance of doubt, these are Spurs supporters, which just goes to show that remaining in the Premier League is not a panacea. Tottenham’s crisis is partially existential. They have a magnificent home and are regulars in the top-six, but the League Cup in 2008 remains their only trophy this century. A season hangs on their Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt. They skirt along a precipice.
Spurs have spent one season beneath this level since 1950, yet it has become a gilded cage. In their last match, a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea, Ange Postecoglou was serenaded with chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing,” and ahead of the Southampton game, they stand 16th in the table. Within that context, this victory is uncomfortably comfortable.
Southampton have far greater certainty, not that it brings them joy. It is only 315 days since their Championship play-off win over Leeds, long enough for their relegation to be guaranteed with seven fixtures still to play, an unparalleled feat of ineptitude. For its majority, the game that seals it is the sporting equivalent of still life, a masterpiece of nothing happening.
Southampton still need one more point to avoid being the outright worst side in Premier League history (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
They are stuck on 10 points, one fewer than the 11 Derby County were somehow sunk with in 2008. “Our goal has to be that we avoid being the worst team in Premier League history,” Juric says, but it is a goal that will fall to others. “It’s been a miserable season at times,” Aaron Ramsdale says, and they certainly aren’t a-changing here.
Outside the away end, which is full and loud throughout, defiance is rationed. Rob, a 35-year-old season ticket holder, deliberates when asked for his thoughts about this season. “I can’t really use the words I want to use,” he says, pointing down at Zac, his young son. He settles on “crap,” and then revises it to “really crap.” There is a pause. “Honestly, it’s been so crap.”
Southampton play in pink but are anything but pretty, first on the back foot and then marching backwards. They have a good early chance when Kamaldeen Sulemana’s far post shot is blocked, but by half-time they are 2-0 down and down full stop. Shielding their eyes against the sun’s glare, fans sing “Southampton ’til I die,” but their team have been meek.
Unlike the day before, there is no jeopardy, not until the end when Mateus Fernandes grabs one back and there is a chorus of “We are staying up,” but this is tongue greeting cheek at velocity. More accurately, as long, futile minutes tick down and Spurs get a third goal, is a last hurrah of “Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, we’re going to Coventry (City).”
What there will be is another reset and more churn. They came up with a plan and a philosophy manager in Russell Martin, but sticking to noble principles could not buy them a league win until early November and Martin, who is now being linked with Leicester, was sacked after a 5-0 defeat to Spurs the following month. They have been blitzed.
Juric could not alter that. “The huge difference between us, Ipswich, Leicester and the others is physicality,” he says in Tottenham’s cavernous media auditorium. “Technically, maybe there are some moments you can do it, but the others are physically stronger and they are faster.”
He goes on. “If you don’t compete and you are relegated much too easy, it means there is a huge problem in lots of situations. Now is a very important moment to understand all the mistakes that we made.”
For Juric, that starts with transfers (Southampton spent around £100.9m after their promotion, again according to Maguire). “We have lots of young players, talented players, but if you put on paper how many games they did in the Premier League, you understand they never played. They are good but lack experience. Recruitment is everything in football.”
Ivan Juric watching what turned out to be his final game in charge of Southampton (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
In their statement announcing his sacking, Southampton praise Juric for his “honesty.”
Not everything is bleak. At the final whistle, there is moment of communion. Juric and his team stand in front of their supporters, who largely stay where they are. They applaud each other. One by one, players peel off sodden shirts and hand them to fans. For two, three, four minutes, nobody moves; the day has largely been free of emotion, but this is affecting.
“That was a completely new experience,” Juric says. “I said to the players they have to be really thankful they have fans like this. Every person that works in Southampton has to do better and create something much stronger. It was something incredible. They showed love, even in this moment.” Jan Bednarek, the captain, says, “hopefully we are going to build something great.”
Juric laid no foundations. Outside, the bubble is popped and Rob says “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. We’re not stupid, we know how tough the Premier League is, but it felt like we were in much better shape than we were two years ago. It felt exciting.” He looks down at Zac, who is holding his hand. This hasn’t been exciting. There have been tears.
Southampton’s players and fans contemplate relegation together at the final whistle (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Monday April 7: Leicester City 0 Newcastle United 3
Leicester need a miracle, but their miracles are all used up. The club that won seven of their last nine Premier League games in 2014-15 to stay up and then won the title as 5000-1 shots the following season know all about footballing fairy stories and how there is no such thing as happily ever after. There is always another game.
They won the FA Cup in 2021 and were relegated two years later. They have come up and are going down. While no supporter — surely — would swap any of that frenetic, headlong decade for Tottenham’s inert version of stability, glory becomes addictive. When you have known better, it is difficult to stomach worse; and this is so, so much worse.
Unlike at Ipswich, there is a lack of novelty at the King Power Stadium. Unlike the away section at Spurs, there is no warmth. From the start — before the start — Leicester’s season has been disharmonious, with the threat of a points deduction hanging over them, Enzo Maresca leaving for Chelsea in early June, Steve Cooper, his replacement, lasting five months and Ruud van Nistelrooy now the conductor of catastrophe.
Van Nistelrooy’s first three games brought a defeat, a victory and a draw; his fourth, on December 14, was a visit to Newcastle, who were navel-gazing after a damaging 4-2 defeat at Brentford. Whatever Leicester’s game plan was that day, it did not involve keeping it tight. They were battered 4-0. Since then, it has been a torrent of losses, punctuated by one single league win, against Spurs.
The return fixture is Leicester’s last before their season ticket renewal deadline which, if it were not for faith and habit and umbilical ties and the hazy, golden memory of miracles, would not seem like much of a decision. As kick-off comes, there has been no home league goal for four months. There have been seven straight league defeats; an eighth equals a club record.
They are 50-1 to stay up which, compared to 5000-1 (odds immortalised on a banner outside the stadium), represents a feeble challenge. The empty seats as Kasabian’s Club Foot blares out and (yet more) flame effects lick the sky, say something else. As does Van Nistelrooy when the television cameras pan to him two minutes in; he says “For f**k’s sake,” at some volume.
Monday’s game was another chastening experience for Leicester and Ruud van Nistelrooy (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
The first Newcastle goal, which prompts Van Nistelrooy’s explosion, is bad enough, but the second, which sees Fabian Schar shoot from behind the halfway line and strike the crossbar before Jacob Murphy makes it two, strains credibility. No expletive would cover the lazy passing in the build-up, Mads Hermansen straying into the wilderness, the lack of cohesion or urgency.
The stadium roars into angry life. It is “You’re not fit to the wear to wear the shirt,” and it is “We want (John) Rudkin out,” in (questionable) honour of Leicester’s director of football and it is Newcastle fans revelling in “Say hello to Sunderland, la la la.” It is some truly dreadful football and then a third concession which Harvey Barnes, the former Leicester player, does not celebrate.
Leicester City fans make their feelings clear during Monday’s game (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
The biggest cheer of the night comes when Jeremy Monga, Leicester’s No 93, steps onto the pitch, making his debut at the age of 15, too young to wear a strip bearing sponsorship by the club’s online gaming platform, so his shirt is bare. “If Monga scores, we’re on the pitch,” is the chant, but he does not.
The game trickles to a finish, the ground emptying, energy draining. For Monga, it is a strange sort of beginning but the evening feels more like an ending and perhaps for Van Nistelrooy, who was appointed after a single season of frontline coaching at PSV Eindhoven and four games as Manchester United’s interim manager, it will be. How can this carry on?
The Dutchman is asked whether he remains committed to Leicester for the rest of the season and says, “The most important thing is the club and these players and that’s what I would say for now.” He is asked again, does he see himself carrying on? “The most important thing is the club and the players, so that’s my reaction,” he says.
Could he give any cause for hope, any glimmer for the future? “It’s been such a bad run of games, not getting results and not being able to score goals,” he says. “For me, it’s time to recover from this before I can say anything else.”
It is funny definition of hope, but nobody laughs.
(Header design: Eamonn Dalton; photos: Getty Images)
