What If Manchester City Had Been Relegated as a Fourth Club? Nine Clubs Who Would Have Gone Up

An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of 114 of the 115 Premier League charges, according to reports.^[1] The ruling has not been officially published, no sanction has been set, and City are expected to appeal. 

The charges cover nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18. 

Most of the debate since the verdict has been about who should have won the titles. The losers of English football's most valuable single match have received far less attention.

We imagined a punishment built for this case. 

In each season City broke the rules, they are relegated as a fourth club, and the beaten Championship play-off finalist is promoted to take their place. 

In that version of history, Reading go up twice, while Blackpool, Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday each get the Premier League return they never had.

How the scenario works

In each season, City are relegated wherever they finished. The bottom three still go down as they did in reality, so four clubs leave the Premier League. To keep the division at 20 clubs, the losing Championship play-off finalist is promoted alongside the champions, the runners-up and the play-off winners.

The Championship stays at 24 clubs, because City arrive as the extra club leaves. Nothing changes further down the football pyramid.

We treat each season as a separate scenario. In a single timeline, City relegated in 2010 would not have been in the Premier League to be relegated in later seasons. 

The full list of assumptions is at the end of the article.

Eight different clubs gain a Premier League place, with Reading gaining two. In five of the nine cases, the club was promoted within three years anyway. In the other four, the club never got back to the top flight.

Reading: the club that loses twice

Reading lost two Wembley play-off finals in this period, and in this scenario, they would have been promoted both times. The 2011 defeat to Swansea cost them only a year, since they won the Championship in 2012.

The 2017 defeat was harder. Reading drew 0–0 with Huddersfield and lost 4–3 on penalties. They have not been close to the Premier League since.

The ones that never got back

Blackpool had just spent a season in the Premier League under Ian Holloway when they lost the 2012 final to West Ham. In this scenario, they go straight back up. In reality they dropped down the divisions and were in League Two by 2016.

Derby County lost the 2014 final to a late QPR goal, despite QPR playing the last half hour with 10 men. They reached the final again in 2019 and lost again. Derby's later financial problems and points deductions make this the starkest "what if" on the list.

Sheffield Wednesday lost the 2016 final to Hull and are still waiting for a first Premier League season since 2000. Like Derby, they later faced financial sanctions of their own. 

The ones that only lost time

For Cardiff City, Watford, Middlesbrough and Aston Villa, along with Reading in 2011, the gain is a head start rather than a new path. Each was promoted within three years. The cost to them is mostly Premier League revenue.Aston Villa are the most valuable case. Their 2018 defeat to Fulham came during a financial crisis that new owners resolved only that summer. In this scenario, promotion would have come a season earlier and with far less financial pressure.

With a different rule, the gains go to a different set of clubs. If City took one of the three relegation places instead of going down as a fourth club, the play-offs would stay as they were, and the 18th-placed club would survive each season.

Hull would have stayed up twice. Wigan went down in 2013 only days after winning the FA Cup. Bolton and Birmingham both went on to have spells in League One.