Data story · Soccer
Premier League great escapes, matchday by matchday.
One club in 31 seasons was bottom of the Premier League with a single round to play and still stayed up. A great escape is the title race turned upside down: a long run at the dark end of the colour scale that lightens just before the finish.
Every strip on this page is a real Soccer strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about Soccer.
How to read the strips
Each strip is one club’s Premier League season, one band per matchday from Matchday 1 on the left to Matchday 38 on the right. The colour is league position: deep aubergine at the bottom of the table, lilac for mid-table, gold at the top of the table. With 20 clubs and three relegated, the bottom three places are the three darkest shades a strip can show.
Positions are worked out from results, after every club has played the same number of games, ranked on points, goal difference and goals scored, so games in hand never distort the picture.
West Bromwich Albion, 2004-05
- Bottom of the table
- Mid-table
- Top of the table
No club here was bottom as late as West Brom and survived. They were bottom after 14 matchdays and still 20th going into the last round, then finished 17th on 34 points, one more than Crystal Palace, who went down. On the strip, the dark run only lifts in the very last band.
Leicester City, 2014-15
- Bottom of the table
- Mid-table
- Top of the table
Leicester’s strip has the longest unbroken stretch at the bottom of any survivor: 20th after every matchday from 13 to 29. They climbed to finish 14th on 41 points, six clear of Hull in 18th. The next season the same club won the league, which the greatest title races tells in full. Few pairs of strips in the app are further apart.
Late and early escapes
- Bottom of the table
- Mid-table
- Top of the table
Wigan in 2010-11 is the next-latest: bottom as late as Matchday 32, still in the bottom three with one game left, and 16th at the end.
- Bottom of the table
- Mid-table
- Top of the table
Crystal Palace in 2017-18 is the escape that happened early. They were bottom after 12 of the first 16 matchdays, then rose to finish 11th, the highest of any club on this page. The strip goes from almost black on the left to lilac on the right, so it reads as a climb rather than a last-day rescue.
The other way: from the top half to relegation
- Bottom of the table
- Mid-table
- Top of the table
A strip that darkens from left to right is a club falling. Blackpool in 2010-11, in their only Premier League season, were 2nd after Matchday 1 and still in the top half after Matchday 22. They went down in 19th on 39 points, level with Birmingham in 18th.
- Bottom of the table
- Mid-table
- Top of the table
Bournemouth in 2019-20 were 6th after Matchday 6 and 7th after Matchday 11, then spent most of the second half in the bottom three and went down in 18th, one point behind Aston Villa.
What the strips leave out. The table is rebuilt from match results alone, so points deductions are not applied. A handful of seasons had them (Middlesbrough in 1996-97 was relegated after one), and those are left off this page because the strip would not match what really happened.
Plenty more escapes, and plenty of clubs that did not escape, are left to find in the Premier League category. For a comeback inside a single game, see the biggest NFL comebacks.
Huezle draws one club’s season and asks which club it is. A great escape is one of the hardest to name.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhoneQuestions
Has a team bottom of the Premier League at Christmas ever stayed up?
Yes. West Bromwich Albion in 2004-05 and Leicester City in 2014-15 were both bottom through the middle of the season and survived. West Brom were still bottom with one round of matches left and finished 17th.
What was Leicester’s great escape?
In 2014-15 Leicester City were bottom of the Premier League after every matchday from 13 to 29, then finished 14th, six points clear of the relegation places. The next season they won the league.
Has a club gone from the top half to relegation in one Premier League season?
Yes. Among the 31 seasons here, Blackpool in 2010-11 were in the top half after 22 matchdays and still went down in 19th. Bournemouth in 2019-20 were 7th after Matchday 11 and were relegated in 18th.
More guides
- The greatest Premier League title races, matchday by matchday.Premier League title races since 1995-96 as strips of colour: late swings, wire-to-wire champions, Leicester in 2015-16 and the leaders who let it slip.
- The biggest NFL comebacks of the last ten seasons.The biggest deficits overcome in NFL regular-season games from 2016 to 2025, drawn as strips of colour, from the Vikings’ 33-point comeback to the 21-point ones.
- How to read a century of presidential elections in colour.US presidential elections since 1900 drawn as strips of colour, one band per state from west to east. Learn to read the eras from four real strips.
- When did the South flip from Democrat to Republican?The Solid South in colour: how Southern states went from voting Democratic by 90 points to reliably Republican, told in four election strips from 1920 to 2024.
Now try naming one yourself.
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