How Many Points Do You Need (Updated)?

I finally got around to updating the season history for all 21 completed seasons. The last time I did it looks to have been S15!

I’ll do some separate posts on the club and manager records soon.

To get started, here’s my latest guide for how many points you need to win each division, get promoted, secure a playoff spot, avoid relegation, and avoid the sack. This is based on the last six seasons only, so the numbers do look a bit different to before.

In summary, everyone is getting squeezed! For comparison, the last time I updated this was S14.

In D1, it’s now “easier” to win the title in terms of the number of points needed, but harder to break into the top four because the competition at the top has really started to heat up over the past few seasons, as both Arsenal and then Hellas Verona broke the Chelsea-Barcelona duopoly.

At the other end of the table, it will be no surprise to those living through it now and in recent seasons, but it’s getting harder to survive. 39 points used to be enough, now it’s 43!

Not much difference at the top of D2, but at the bottom, like in D1 it’s getting harder to survive. A whole 4 points harder to avoid relegation, and a whopping SIX points harder to avoid the sack!

In D3 and D4, it’s harder to win automatic promotion than it used to be. And harder to survive.

And in the D5, it’s easier to win the title (ask Shakhtar!) and harder to avoid the bottom three than ever before.

All in all, Top 100 is more competitive than it ever has been. So congratulations to everyone for making it so! (Of course, we’ll have to see how much of this effect was due to contracts….)