As we stand in the Premier League, there have been teams who have suddenly skyrocketed up the league after relegation battles and midtable obscurity, with the best of examples here being Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth.
Nottingham Forest have emerged as one of the top teams in England in 2024/2025 as they currently sit in third place, well surpassing their point tally last year of 32 already as they sit on 44 points. Prior to their recent loss to Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest had been on an undefeated streak, last losing a league game to Manchester City on the 4th December.
As well as Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth have slowly emerged as a team fighting for European contention, having been undefeated in the league since a 2-1 defeat to Brighton on the 23rd of November. Bournemouth currently sit seventh in the league table, only behind sixth-placed Chelsea on goals scored.
With these teams jumping up the league having these incredible seasons so far, this means some bigger teams have had to crumble and fall down the pecking order so far in the season. One of these teams is Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs, who have finished in the top eight in every Premier League season since 2008/2009, have been plagued with injuries to their senior players, barely being able to put nine players on the bench.
This has led to losses in recent weeks to struggling teams, such as Everton and Leicester. This has left Tottenham surprisingly in 15th place at the end of January and 17 points off of a top four finish, which many fans were hoping to achieve this season.
Question marks are growing over the future of manager Ange Postecoglou, with Spurs having taken just one point from the last 21 available in the Premier League.
Another big team who have fallen out of the top ten this season is Manchester United. The Red Devils have constantly struggled to build consistency that the fans are used to and the subsequent animosity and frustration has led to the firing of Erik Ten Haag and the hiring of Ruben Amorim.
However, despite this drastic shakeup in the middle of the season, it has not had the immediate impact on results that the club expected and has left them 13th in the league, just five points in front of Tottenham.
With this change of competitiveness being exciting and all, the question is if this will be sustainable or if things will go back to how they have always been after this year.
The reason for this is because this season has some similarities with the 2015/2016 Premier League season. In that season, both Liverpool and Chelsea disappointed with both losing their spots in Europe as Liverpool finished eighth and Chelsea tenth. Both teams also had a change of manager and had overall unorganised seasons.
Their spots in Europe were taken by Southampton and West Ham who unexpectedly found themselves in Europa League spots, much like Forest and Bournemouth are this term. In the top four, Manchester United would be replaced with the miraculous title win of Leicester City.
However, from the next season on, all three teams slowly went back to their previous form and league standings which many expected. The question then is whether the likes of Spurs and Manchester United can get back on track, and whether the likes of Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth can sustain their form.
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