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For the first time in English top-flight history, four clubs remain without a win from their opening eight games of a season. But what does that mean for Wolves, Southampton, Ipswich and Crystal Palace? Can they turn their form around to avoid relegation from the Premier League in 2024-25?
The 2024-25 Premier League campaign is the 126th top-flight English league season, but it’s the first ever to see as many as four teams fail to win any of their opening eight games.
Wolverhampton Wanderers (D1 L7), Southampton (D1 L7), Ipswich Town (D4 L4) and Crystal Palace (D3 L5) are still without a victory following Matchday 8 of 2024-25, with Palace’s defeat to Nottingham Forest on Monday night sealing an English top-flight record.
The previous record in the Premier League era was three clubs without a win at this stage of the season, occurring in both 2021-22 (Newcastle United, Burnley and Norwich City) and 2018-19 (Newcastle, Cardiff City, Huddersfield Town).
Ipswich have the most points of the winless four teams (4) but one concern will be that it’s exactly the same record at this stage of the season as promoted duo Burnley and Luton last term – both ended up being relegated back to the Championship.
Crystal Palace’s latest defeat at Forest leaves them on three points – the exact tally they had after eight games of 2017-18 and 2013-14 before recovering to finish 11th in both seasons.
For Wolves, this is their worst-ever start to a top-flight season, eclipsing the two points won after eight games back in 1983-84. They ended that season bottom of the league.
While still less than a fifth of the way through the season, a four-point gap has already opened up between Everton in 16th and Ipswich in 17th, while Southampton and Wolves still only have one point on the board each.
There have only been six previous occasions of a team winning one point or fewer across their opening eight games to a Premier League season, but two of those have ended up surviving.
Southampton have been in this position before – back in 1998-99 – and they survived. Saints stuck by boss Dave Jones despite a miserable start that saw them win just two points inside the opening nine games before finally winning their 10th match of the season. An excellent recovery in the second half of the season – winning 28 points from 19 games, after winning just 13 in their first 19 matches – saw them avoid relegation by five points.
In 2013-14, meanwhile, Sunderland managed to survive and ultimately finish 14th in the Premier League after an eight-game winless run to start the season. They sacked Paolo Di Canio after he won just one point across the opening five games, before eventually appointing Gus Poyet in the international break ahead of their eighth match.
Obviously this season’s four winless clubs can’t all go down, with only three teams dropping into the Championship from the Premier League. This offers a glimmer of hope, as at least one of Palace, Wolves, Southampton and Ipswich will join the list of 10 clubs to be winless across their opening eight matches of a Premier League season and avoid relegation.
Bournemouth did just that last season, sticking by new manager Andoni Iraola and trusting his quality as a coach. He proved them right in the end, securing a 12th-place finish despite not winning until the 10th game of the Premier League season, where his side defeated Burnley 2-1 at home.
From that day onwards, Bournemouth picked up 45 points from 29 Premier League matches – the same as Manchester United and only fewer than five other clubs in the competition.
So, what does the Opta supercomputer say now that we’re eight games into the season?
At the start of the campaign, Southampton were projected as the most likely side to be relegated in 2024-25 at 66.7%. Following their return of one point from eight games, their projected chance has increased to 96.0%, making them heavy favourites to drop back down to the Championship.
Ipswich remain second favourites for the drop, but their projected chance has increased from 64.7% pre-season to 77.9% now, while the other promoted side, Leicester, have given themselves a great chance of survival. Before the season began in August, the Opta supercomputer saw them relegated in 60.3% of 10,000 season simulations, but that chance has now reduced to 28.3% after winning nine points across the opening eight matchdays.
Wolves’ worst-ever start to a top-flight league season means that they are now being given a 60.9% chance of dropping back down to the Championship, where they haven’t played since winning the second tier back in 2017-18.
So impressive was Crystal Palace’s form under Oliver Glasner following his appointment as manager last season, the supercomputer felt confident that they wouldn’t be in a relegation battle in 2024-25. After taking charge for the first time on 24 February, Palace won 24 points in 13 games – a tally only bettered by Manchester City (35), Arsenal (34) and Chelsea (28). That form has eluded them so far this season, however.
In pre-season, we gave Palace just a 1.8% projected chance of relegation this season. That has now increased to 16.1% after eight matches and will continue to rise unless they can rediscover something like their form from the end of 2023-24.
While Palace will be getting nervous about their form, Nottingham Forest have been proving the Opta supercomputer wrong so far. In pre-season, we gave them a 35.6% chance of dropping to the Championship this season, but after collecting 13 points from the opening eight matchdays, they are relegated in just 2.9% of the current 10,000 season simulations.
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