Concerns that the Premier League was too strong for promoted clubs had developed in recent times, but Sunderland, Leeds and Burnley are on course to defy expectations in 2025-26.
It was the 18th-century poet, Alexander Pope, who said, “blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” While he probably didn’t have the supporters of promoted Premier League clubs in the 21st century in mind when he wrote it, it’s a mentality that likely reflected the attitudes of Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland fans going into 2025-26.
The Premier League had seemingly become a brutal, unforgiving hellscape for promoted teams, giving rise to discussions about the widening chasm between English football’s top two divisions. Some were adamant it had never been wider; others likely suggested a new norm had been established.
All that cynicism was easy to understand. After all, the 2024-25 Premier League season saw all three promoted clubs relegated straight back to the Championship – it was the second top-flight campaign in succession that rendered such a fate for the newcomers, having previously been something of a rarity.
For instance, before the 2023-24 campaign, there’d been only one Premier League season – 1997-98 – in which all three promoted clubs suffered relegation at the first time of asking. So, not only was it unusual seeing it happen in 2023-24, but it occurring in back-to-back seasons was unheard of in the Premier League era.
Expectations, then, were very low collectively for Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland. It felt like the Premier League and the Championship needed at least one of them to survive in order to cool concerns about the top end of the English football pyramid being irreparably warped.
Now, fast-forward to the present day. Through nine matchdays of the 2025-26 Premier League season, the three promoted teams have confounded expectations.
Matchday 9 saw all three of them win. Leeds beat West Ham 2-1 on Friday; Sunderland stunned Chelsea with a 2-1 comeback victory at Stamford Bridge on Saturday; and on Sunday, Burnley rescued a dramatic 3-2 win at Wolves.
Premier League table
It was the first time since 28-30 November 2020 that all three promoted teams won on the same Premier League matchday. Or, if you want to disregard that season because stadiums were mostly empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you then have to go back to 29 December 2018 for the last time all three promoted sides won on the same matchday.
That in itself doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve confounded expectations, but those victories took the promoted trio onto 38 points collectively (Sunderland – 17, Leeds – 11, Burnley – 10), and that’s significant.
Only twice before have the promoted teams amassed more than 38 points collectively through the first nine matchdays of a Premier League season. In 2005-06, West Ham (15), Wigan Athletic (19) and Sunderland (5) had 39 points altogether at this stage, while after nine matchdays of 1992-93, Blackburn Rovers (18), Ipswich Town (12) and Middlesbrough (14) had accumulated 44.
Promoted teams - Most points Premier League
Of course, Sunderland have been the surprise package of 2025-26. Saturday’s late win at Chelsea actually took them up to second in the Premier League table until victories for Bournemouth and Tottenham on Sunday meant Régis Le Bris’ side dropped to fourth.
Nevertheless, they were still the first promoted side to end a day second in the Premier League after at least nine games played since 25 November 2005 (Wigan).
Similarly, Sunderland’s total of 17 points has only been bettered by five promoted teams through nine matchdays, and they’re the first to manage that many since Hull City accumulated 20 by this stage in 2008-09.
Promoted teams - Most points at MD9
As such, this weekend they entered the top 50 in the Opta Power Rankings for the first time since 1 February 2011.
Sceptics will point to the fact that Leeds and Burnley aren’t exactly fighting for European places right now. But compared to what we’d come to expect over the past few years, seeing all three of the promoted teams at least five points above the bottom three is a breath of fresh air.
So, is there an explanation for the promoted teams’ improvement on those of the past two seasons?
One theory relates to the evolving playing styles of the Premier League.
It’s widely accepted that the Premier League has collectively embraced direct football more this season, with teams that are committed to relentless ball dominance being few and far between.
There’s an argument, then, that this has helped to create a more level playing field. Sure, it may be hard to stop a team like Pep Guardiola’s best Manchester City side from slicing through you, but it’s even harder to master such a brand of football. Theoretically, it’s easier and less technically demanding to be effective playing direct, especially if you can build a team that’s both physical and still competent on a technical level. Going long is also less risky if you aren’t really cut out for tiki-taka football – just ask Southampton from last season.
Saints were an extreme example of what had become a trend of teams earning promotion from the Championship while playing expressive football and attempting to replicate it in the Premier League. It’s rarely worked, and in their case, it contributed to them being one of the worst sides in the competition’s history.
While all the promoted teams this season are a little more nuanced in their style than, say, your average route-one side from the 1990s, none of them see ball domination as central to their survival hopes. That’s reflected by the playing styles graphic below, which also highlights how generally Premier League football is slightly more direct this season than either of the last two.
Playing Styles - Premier League promoted clubs
Leeds boss Daniel Farke is openly prioritising “rock-solid defending and being difficult to beat and difficult to create chances against”; Burnley’s promotion was built on the foundation of a historically shrewd defence in the Championship; and Sunderland have played the second-greatest proportion of passes forward (37.3%) in the Premier League this term.
In fact, Sunderland didn’t even average 50% possession (48.7%) in the Championship last season. Leeds (61.5%) and Burnley (56.9%) did, but neither have particularly attempted to bring that up to the Premier League, averaging 47.6% and 35.6% respectively – the latter being the lowest in the division.
Clues could be seen in the teams’ recruitment. Leeds clearly looked to overhaul their squad with physical players, and that was an unmistakable element of some of Sunderland’s signings too, even if their focus on youth arguably attracted more attention.
This plays into another intriguing aspect of the broader Premier League this season: set-piece importance.
Burnley (45.1%) and Sunderland (42.1%) have seen the greatest proportion of shots come via dead-ball situations among all Premier League clubs in 2025-26.
When it comes to proportion of expected goals (xG), Sunderland (43%) are way out in front while Burnley rank as high as sixth (35.8%).
Leeds are towards the other end of the scale for proportion of xG from set-pieces (21.9%, sixth lowest), and yet, 44.4% of their goals have come from set-pieces, with only Arsenal (56.3%) and Chelsea (47.1%) more reliant in that respect.
It should also be noted that physicality has been essential for Leeds in terms of winning the ball back high up the pitch, with no one bettering their 16 shot-ending high turnovers. That equates to 27.6% of their total high turnovers, which is an efficiency no other team gets near.
Nevertheless, when looking at the promoted teams in general, it’s not outlandish to suggest there may have been a considerable degree of luck involved.
Our expected points model – which uses xG data to assess how each game ‘should’ have finished based on the quality of chances each team created – suggests that, although Leeds should be higher in the table, Sunderland and Burnley deserve to be much further down than they are.
Premier League expected points table Oct 2025-26
Now, it should be said that the model isn’t perfect as xG doesn’t take into consideration many factors such as game state and periods of threat that don’t yield a shot, but it still provides a decent barometer of how well teams have done in games.
With that in mind, the data doesn’t exactly suggest the form of Burnley or Sunderland is particularly sustainable, but momentum in football can be as valuable as it is fragile.
There’s also a long, long way to go. Sunderland’s start may have been brilliant, for example, but it only takes a couple of poor results to rock the boat.
The omens are at least pretty positive. Only nine of the 46 promoted teams to have 10+ points through nine games have ended up being relegated, with Watford in 2021-22 the most recent.
In fact, the last time all the promoted teams stayed up (2022-23), Nottingham Forest had managed just five points by this stage – Burnley have double that and reached 10 points almost two months earlier than in their last top-flight season.
So, while low expectations may have been shared across the board for the promoted teams before 2025-26, it’s the defiance of them that’s helped shape one of the most compelling narratives of the early months of the season. Their modest hopes of survival now look almost realistic; whether this is fleeting or setting the tone for the rest of the campaign, it’s at least reassuring that 2025-26 hasn’t instantly followed the pattern of the two prior seasons.
Premier League Stats Opta
*Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X*, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.**