David Marsden

How Many Points Do You Need To Avoid Relegation?


Yet another one in the ‘How Many Points Do You Need To…?‘ series….

This time, how to avoid the dreaded drop (positions 17-20) in Divisions 1, 2, 3 & 4.

Division One – 40 points

In Season 1, PSG were relegated with 43 points, and Dortmund with 42. Six seasons later, that looks a bit of an outlier, though.
The next highest points total not good enough to survive is Wolfsburg’s 39 last season.
Manchester City’s 35 point haul in Season 4 is the fewest any team has accumulated and still survived.

So it looks like 37 points may be enough, 38 is probably enough, while 40 almost guarantees safety.

Season Div Pos Team P W D L GF GA GD Pts
<!–br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}

7 1 17 VfL Wolfsburg 38 9 12 17 30 50 -20 39
5 1 14 Manchester City 38 10 8 20 43 63 -20 38
5 1 15 Ajax 38 10 8 20 41 62 -21 38
2 1 16 Liverpool 38 8 14 16 42 63 -21 38
6 1 16 VfL Wolfsburg 38 8 13 17 43 59 -16 37
5 1 16 AS Roma 38 9 10 19 41 60 -19 37
2 1 17 Internazionale 38 10 7 21 33 59 -26 37
5 1 17 AC Milan 38 8 12 18 30 58 -28 36
2 1 18 AC Milan 38 9 8 21 52 67 -15 35
3 1 17 Manchester United 38 8 11 19 36 55 -19 35
4 1 16 Manchester City 38 9 8 21 47 69 -22 35
3 1 18 Fenerbahçe SK 38 9 8 21 37 61 -24 35

Division Two – 43 points

Sporting Lisbon stayed up in Season 2 with just 37 points. Boca did likewise with 38. Both appear to be outliers.
Lyon stayed up in Season 3 with 41 points, the nest lowest survival total.
On the other hand, Swansea were extremely unfortunate to go down in Season 5 despite accumulating a whopping 45 points.
Otherwise, 43 points will secure safety in D2, and 42 will likely be enough – only Southampton last season got relegated with so many points.
Season Div Pos Team P W D L GF GA GD Pts
<!–br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}

5 2 17 Swansea City 38 13 6 19 31 49 -18 45
7 2 16 Zenit Saint Petersburg 38 9 17 12 33 44 -11 44
3 2 14 SL Benfica 38 11 11 16 33 48 -15 44
4 2 15 SL Benfica 38 9 16 13 39 50 -11 43
3 2 15 CSKA Moskva 38 12 7 19 40 55 -15 43
4 2 16 Spartak Moskva 38 12 6 20 45 55 -10 42
7 2 17 Southampton 38 10 12 16 39 52 -13 42
2 2 14 SL Benfica 38 12 6 20 43 59 -16 42
7 2 18 Sunderland 38 11 9 18 38 55 -17 42
3 2 16 Olympique Lyonnais 38 10 11 17 36 49 -13 41

Division Three – 44 points

45 points wasn’t enough to save Southampton in Season 1. Likewise Dynamo Moskva with 44.
43 points relegated Monaco in Season 3, and Boca went down with 42 in Season 5.
Crystal Palace survived with 41 points in Season 4, while Fenerbahce went one better last season, staying up with just 40 points.
42 points is therefore the minimum to aim for to have a reasonable chance of survival. 43 would be better, of course, while 44 pretty much guarantees it.
Season Div Pos Team P W D L GF GA GD Pts
<!–br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}

5 3 16 Shakhtar Donetsk 38 9 16 13 43 44 -1 43
6 3 15 PSV 38 11 10 17 40 47 -7 43
3 3 17 AS Monaco 38 11 10 17 42 56 -14 43
5 3 17 Boca Juniors 38 9 15 14 39 41 -2 42
7 3 15 Leicester City 38 12 6 20 42 48 -6 42
6 3 16 Galatasaray SK 38 10 12 16 43 56 -13 42
5 3 18 Crystal Palace 38 9 14 15 38 48 -10 41
5 3 19 Leicester City 38 10 11 17 41 53 -12 41
2 3 17 HAMBURGER SV 38 12 5 21 42 55 -13 41
6 3 17 Aston Villa 38 10 11 17 38 53 -15 41
4 3 16 Crystal Palace 38 10 11 17 38 56 -18 41

Division Four – 44 points

No team has survived the drop in D4 with fewer than 42 points, but realistically, 44 will be needed to stay up. Although even that wasn’t enough for Koln on Season 3.
Season Div Pos Team P W D L GF GA GD Pts
<!–br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}

4 4 14 Dynamo Kyiv 38 10 14 14 38 43 -5 44
3 4 17 1. FC Köln 38 11 11 16 39 51 -12 44
5 4 15 Feyenoord 38 12 8 18 45 60 -15 44
6 4 16 VfB Stuttgart 38 12 8 18 35 52 -17 44
7 4 16 Atalanta BC 38 11 10 17 45 52 -7 43
4 4 15 Girondins Bordeaux 38 11 10 17 31 41 -10 43
1 4 17 Villarreal CF 38 12 7 19 45 55 -10 43
7 4 17 Girondins Bordeaux 38 9 16 13 47 59 -12 43
1 4 18 Feyenoord 38 12 7 19 55 71 -16 43
2 4 17 RCD Espanyol 38 11 9 18 49 59 -10 42
3 4 18 Torino 38 9 15 14 38 52 -14 42
5 4 16 VfB Stuttgart 38 11 9 18 40 54 -14 42
4 4 16 Feyenoord 38 12 6 20 43 63 -20 42

One comment

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s