One day Leicester were playing Liverpool in the Premier League, then within 15 months it was Notts County, Burton Albion and MK Dons in League One. It is a path of back-to-back relegations to the third tier of English football which was exceptionally rare. Now statistically it is becoming more common.
With Burnley marooned in the Championship relegation zone, they could be the third team in three years to suffer the double drop, For the 1,450 Burnley supporters who made the trip to Lincoln City last weekend, the threat is all too real. Head coach Nicky Hayen was never likely to survive a 4-1 defeat by a Lincoln team who were in non-league football 10 years ago. With Diego Lopez appointed as Burnley's new chief football officer, and Fabio Celestini installed as their new boss, the Clarets must now hope for a change in fortunes.
Is the Championship becoming ever-more competitive as well-run clubs like Lincoln make an impact? Or it simply a case of clubs from the Premier League imploding after relegation? Fifteen years ago, the suggestion a top-flight club could be relegated in successive seasons was unthinkable.
After all, in the first 20 seasons of the Premier League it happened just the once. That was to Swindon Town, and even then there were special circumstances. The Robins finished fourth bottom of the second tier in 1994-95 but were relegated because of the rebalancing of the divisions to reduce the Premier League to 20 teams.
In any other season they would not have suffered the double drop. As such, it could be argued that Wolves were the first team to suffer a double drop from the Premier League after being relegated in 2011-12. Since then it has happened four times in 14 seasons.
Or, after Sunderland went down in 2016-18, three times in nine seasons. And then back-to-back seasons with Luton and Leicester. Meanwhile, Wigan and Portsmouth were relegated to League One after a second season in the Championship, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday after a third.
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