Almost all clubs have now posted their accounts for the 2024/25 campaign and they make interesting reading, especially for those making heavy losses and there has been a strict correlation between that and how those clubs have performed this season. The five biggest losses were posted by ........

 

 

The elite Chelsea team of accountants have been hard at work again, despite having no more hotels or women's teams to sell to themselves and are confident that they have no PSR issues. This season they will have the huge Club World Cup and Champions League income to increase turnover to record levels, which will obviously help, so we will see what they post as and when.

 

Anyway, I think we have to argue that all five have underperformed majorly. Leicester City were already consigned to the Championship yet suffered a second straight relegation and will be playing third tier football next season, just 10 years after winning the Premier League.

 

Forest, United and Spurs have all been in a season-long battle to avoid the drop, two will finish bottom 4 and one will join Wolves and Burnley in the Championship.

 

Chelsea are in relatively lofty 9th place this morning, but that is a 15 point drop off from this stage last season when they finished 4th and they are as close to 17th as they are to a Champions League place and already on a third head coach for the season. They do have an upcoming FA Cup final to look forward to, but the biggest clubs view that as little more than a consolation prize nowadays and it usually only rises in importance to them once it becomes the only game in town!

 

PSR is going to be replaced next season by SCR (Squad Cost Ratio) which we will look at when I write the EPL preseason notes, but it seems ripe for further exploitation by the biggest clubs. First thing I have noticed is that it will be run on a seasonal basis, when UEFA regulations calculate on a calendar year basis, so no confusion there at all!

 

Good luck!