Poor Aaron Ramsdale has already been relegated from the Premier League twice, with Bournemouth and Sheffield United… despite winning player of the year at both clubs during those campaigns.
And with Southampton stranded at the bottom of the table, Ramsdale is on course to go down from the top flight for a third time at just 26 years old unless Russell Martin’s side are able to steer themselves clear.
We’ll spare you the list in full because it’s frankly much too long, but here’s some of the more notable figures to have suffered the pain of relegation from the Premier League on at least three occasions.
Kevin Phillips (3 relegations)
Alan Shearer, Kevin Phillips, Harry Kane. So runs the complete list of Englishmen to have scored at least 30 Premier League goals in a 38-game Premier League season.
Phillips took the golden boot for his 30-goal haul for Sunderland in 1999/2000, but three years later was part of an almost historically bad Black Cats side that slipped back down into the second tier.
The striker promptly left for Southampton, who finished bottom in his second season at the club in 2004/05. Phillips was then a bit-part player in the Birmingham side that went down in 2010/11. Speaking of which…
Ben Foster (3 relegations)
After ending a spell with Manchester United that he thoroughly hated, the England international goalkeeper played every game for Alex McLeish’s Birmingham in that doomed 2010/11 campaign.
That was to be Foster’s only season at the club as he stayed in the top flight with a loan to local rivals West Brom that then became permanent. The Baggies followed Birmingham into the Championship in 2017/18, and again Foster jumped ship to stay in the Premier League, re-joining former club Watford.
Of course, they went down too, in Foster’s second season at the club; this time he stayed and helped them secure an immediate return from the second tier.
Rob Green (4 relegations)
Another Three Lions gloveman, Green was part of the Norwich side who followed club custom by getting promoted to the Premier League only to immediately return to the Championship in 2004/05.
After a season back in the second tier, Green joined West Ham United, where he served with distinction for six years…the last of which was spent in the Championship, Green having been part of the relegated side of 2010/11, just a year after his first (and only) appearance at a major international tournament.
Green left West Ham despite their securing an immediate promotion, moving across London to join QPR, who promptly yo-yoed from Premier League to Championship to Premier League to Championship to add two more relegations to Green’s CV.
Nathan Blake (5 relegations)
A lethal centre-forward on his day, Blake joined Sheffield United towards the tail end of the 1993/94 season but was unable to keep them from going down. That’s relegation number one.
The striker joined Bolton midway through the 1995/96 season but was again unable to keep them up. Blake’s 19-goal haul helped fire Bolton straight back to promotion, and he reached double figures in his first full season in the Premier League (12 goals in total) – but it was still not enough to keep them up. That’s three relegations
On to Blackburn, then, where the Welsh international struggled for form and was relegated for a fourth time in 1998/99. From there? Wolves. Did well, helped them get promoted, immediately went back down in 2003/04.
That made it five relegations in 11 seasons, and a new Premier League record set that still hasn’t been broken. But it has been equalled…
Yes, Hreidarsson joins Blake as the only other member of the Five Relegations Club. We wonder if they get together every May and have a little party? Is that where his brilliant Wikipedia profile photo comes from? Who can say.
Hreidarsson went down with Crystal Palace in 1998, Wimbledon in 2000, Ipswich in 2002, Charlton in 2007, and finally Portsmouth in 2010.
Incredibly, the Icelandic centre-back was never actually promoted into the Premier League, with the only promotion of his career coming as he helped lift Brentford from the fourth tier to the third in between his spells at Wimbledon and Ipswich.
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