The last season every current Premier League club wasn't in the top flight

Burnley is back, but it’s not like it has been gone all that long. In 2022-23, managed by Vincent Kompany, Burnley ran roughshod over the Championship. However, Kompany foolishly didn’t change his tactics against Premier League clubs the next season, and the club went right back down. Now managed by Scott Parker, Burnley breezed its way back up to the Premier League after only one season down in the Championship. 

Leeds weren’t just a top-flight staple back in the day. It was the best club in England in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and won the title in 1991-92, the last season before the birth of the Premier League. Leeds was a staple at that level until the club suffered serious financial strains in the 2000s, falling into the third tier at its nadir. Leeds fought its way back to the Premier League for the 2020-21 season, but it spent the two prior seasons in the Championship prior to promotion.

Sunderland fans can relate to the lows of Leeds’ plight, but without quite the same highs. It was a Premier League staple for a while, but not a title contender. In the last decade, the club spent four seasons in League One, and it spent the last three campaigns in the Championship. Now, finally, Sunderland is back in the Premier League for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

There’s been a lot of yo-yoing recently, which is why no club other than the three just-promoted sides have been out of the top flight since the 2021-22 season. In fact, all three teams to get promoted that year are still in the Premier League, as you are about to see. Bournemouth’s five-season run in the Premier League ended with the 2019-20 season, but only took two seasons to get promoted again and hasn’t really been threatened by relegation since.

Fulham was steady for a while, spending over a decade in the Premier League. Since it first got relegated in 2014, though, the London club has been bouncing back-and-forth a bit. That being said, Fulham is now playing its fourth consecutive season in the Premier League, and it hasn’t finished lower than 13th in the table since promotion.

In the 1998-99 season, Nottingham Forest got relegated after finishing last in the Premier League. For years, this was the last we saw of the club in top-flight football. Forest was a Championship side from the 2008-09 season through the 2021-22 season, and even then, it only got promoted through the playoff. And yet! Forest is coming off a remarkable season, finishing seventh in the Premier League in 2024-25. That was the club’s best finish since the 1988-89 campaign.

When Brentford earned promotion, it was an incredible story. It had been 74 years since the Bees had played top-flight football. Yes, 74 years. Brentford was playing in League Two as recently as 2009. Given all that, nobody would have been surprised if Brentford had been sent right back down. Instead, Brentford hasn’t finished lower than 16th over the last four seasons, and finished as high as ninth.

Aston Villa doesn’t feel like a club that would have been out of the top flight in the last decade, but it’s true. Maybe it feels like Villa has been in the Premier League for a while because it has finished in the top seven in each of the last three seasons. Hell, Villa was in the Champions League in the 2024-25 campaign! The club did have a blip in the 2010s, though, spending three seasons in the Championship.

That’s right, Wolves has been in the Premier League for a longer stretch than Aston Villa. The Wolverhampton club has had a different experience, though. In the club’s first two seasons back in the Premier League it finished seventh, but in four of the last five seasons hasn’t finished higher than 13th. This is Wolves’ longest streak of top-flight football since the 1970s, so it does feel like it is playing with fire, and this season has so far been an utter debacle.

Conversely, Brighton does feel like it has become a Premier League regular, Aston Villa-esque in that sense. That’s remarkable, given that the club was in the fourth division in the 2000-01 season. The rise was steady, though, and then finally the club reached the Premier League in 2017. Brighton is now in its ninth season in a row playing top-flight football, and it hasn’t been threatened with relegation for four seasons now, even after losing a couple acclaimed managers.

Yeah, the days of Newcastle worrying about relegation are over. The club is now as rich as any in the world, and the owners can buy a permanent spot in the top flight, more or less. Not that Newcastle was in trouble before that. Since the 1993-94 season, Newcastle has only spent two campaigns in the Championship, and both times it was one-and-done. The club can forget about fighting for survival for now.

That’s right, Crystal Palace has spent over a decade playing Premier League football at this point. They’ve become staples of the league. Prior to this run, Palace were the antithesis of Newcastle in a sense. Between the 1994-95 season and the 2013-14 season, the London club played two seasons in the Premier League, both one-off situations. Now? Palace are FA Cup winners and a regular sight around the middle of the table, with a chance this season at finishing in the top-eight.

The Hammers frustrate fans, and it feels like things are always on the verge of collapsing. And yet, the club has been in the Premier League since the 2012-13 season. In fact, West Ham only spent a single season in the Championship since getting promoted prior to the 2005-06 season. Also, for all the worries about relegation, in this recent run the club has finished below 14th in the table all of once.

This may be shocking to any football fan under 25. Yes, once upon a time, Manchester City wasn’t one of the best clubs in the world. In fact, in this millennium it spent time in the Championship. Even more amazing, the club spent the 1998-99 season in the third tier! Of course, things are quite different now. City has finished lower than third once since the 2009-10 season, dropping all the way down to a lowly fourth. Notably, this is the last club on this list to not play top-flight football at some point in the Premier League era.

While Chelsea didn’t become the club that racked up trophies until Roman Abramovich arrived, the club wasn’t exactly struggling before that. In fact, the club finished in the top six for seven seasons in a row prior to the Abramovich era. Prior to that, the Blues had a stretch as a mid-table club, but that served as a transition from playing second-tier football at the end of the 1980s.

There was a real jump from Man City to Chelsea, and now we have another jump from Chelsea to Spurs. It has been quite some time since a Tottenham fan has seen the club outside of the top flight. Not only that, but the 1976-77 campaign that saw the club get relegated was truly anomalous. Spurs had been in the top flight since the 1950-51 season, and it routinely finished in the top three. It was a bizarre campaign, but Spurs bounced right back up and has been in the top flight ever since.

Manchester United is the giant of the Premier League era. Prior to that, it wasn’t such a formidable force, but was an above-average club, to be sure. In the 1950s and 1960s, United was also one of the top clubs in the world. There was a brief moment there in the 1970s, though, where things went pear-shaped. The club barely avoided relegation in the 1972-73 season, but then it happened the next year. Man United got itself reorganized, finished first in the second division, and then finished third in the first division the very next season. The ship had been righted.

Liverpool is fighting Manchester United to be considered the best club in English football history. One claim the Reds can make is having played consistent top-flight football for over a decade longer than their rivals. Of course, United fans might counter that their beloved club had but a blip of a run in the second division. Liverpool had a rough stretch there in the 1950s. The club spent eight seasons in a row out of the top flight, but during that time it hired a manager by the name of Bill Shankly. Shankly helped the club get promoted at the end of the 1961-62 season, and two years later Liverpool was champion of the top flight.

We definitely know that Everton fans are hanging their hat on the fact that their club has been in the top flight for longer than their Merseyside rivals. The Toffees are the forgotten club in terms of the ones to play in every single Premier League season. That’s because Everton has settled for a participation trophy every time. The club has finished as high as fourth in the Premier League, but never higher. Everton’s last title came at the end of the 1986-87 season. And, of course, its last season in the second division was 1953-54.

Topping this list, the incredible run of Arsenal. It has been over a century since Arsenal didn’t play top-flight football. Here’s how long ago that was. Arsenal’s return to the Premier League was delayed until the 1919-20 campaign, on account of the fact league play was suspended due to World War I. The first World War! Ever since top-flight English football returned post-WWI, the Gunners have been there.