Originally Posted by
Eric the Half a Bee
I can answer that statistically....
It's easy enough to create a rolling average of our league position for a 20 year period.
For every league position outside the top flight, add the number of teams in the divisions above, so 1st in the Championship would be 21st in the league, 20th in League 1 would be 64th etc. Use those figures then to create an average.
That might not be well explained, but for the seasons 2003/04 to 2022/23, our average league position is 28.5, or 8.5th in the Championship. I think that is mighty impressive for a side that has only spent 2 seasons in the top division. Over the last 20 seasons our average position is actually ranked 25th.
Our highest average position over 20 seasons was from 1947/48 to 1966/67, which was 26.5. We spent 7 seasons out of 10 in the top flight between those seasons but, after relegation in 1962, our Division 2 performances weren't great. In fact, the last 20 seasons and those seasons from the 40s to the end of the 60s have been the best 20 year spells in our history.
Over the last 20 seasons, here's the top 40 teams in terms of rank of average position. I think it puts to bed any notion that we're not currently a big club.
1 Manchester United
2 Chelsea
3 Arsenal
4 Liverpool
5 Manchester City
6 Tottenham Hotspur
7 Everton
8 Newcastle United
9 West Ham United
10 Aston Villa
11 Fulham
12 West Bromwich Albion
13 Southampton
14 Leicester City
15 Stoke City
16 Crystal Palace
17 Wolverhampton Wanderers
18 Middlesbrough
19 Burnley
20 Blackburn Rovers
21 Watford
22 Sunderland
23 Norwich City
24 Birmingham City
25 Cardiff City
26 Reading
27 Wigan Athletic
28 Swansea City
29 Leeds United
30 Bolton Wanderers
31 Queens Park Rangers
32 Derby County
33 Sheffield United
34 Hull City
35 Brighton & Hove Albion
36 Nottingham Forest
37 Ipswich Town
38 Preston North End
39 Charlton Athletic
40 Bristol City
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