New boys face fight to beat Prem promotion hoodoo

RECENT history has proved that reaching the promised land is one thing, but remaining there is another altogether.

- BY JEREMY CROSS

In the last two seasons, all three clubs promoted to the Premier League headed straight back to the Championship.

The six sides in question, Ipswich, Leicester, and Southampton (below) last season and Luton, Burnley, and Sheffield United in the previous campaign, managed just 26 points or fewer.

Proof, if any were needed, of how big that leap now is, and how much money has to be spent to give a club a fighting chance of avoiding an immediate return.