Leeds United and Sheffield United beware: Recent history of the Christmas charts is not on your side

Sheffield United will be in the relegation zone when Santa comes down the chimney, and barring a surprise result at Aston Villa – who have won their last 15 home games and have got their eyes on the Christmas No 1 spot – on Friday, they will be bottom of the table too.

Once upon a time that was a Premier League death knell. It remains ominous, but not as fatal as it once was.

Depending on Saturday's results Leeds United will be third or fourth in the second tier, and those who believe in omens might be hoping for the latter. It is 10 years since a team – Leicester City – won promotion having been third on the 25th, but four fourth-placed teams, including Hull City (2015) and Huddersfield Town (2016), have come up.

Six times in the last 10 years the top two – guaranteed to be Leicester and Ipswich Town in 2023 – have made it to the Premier League in May. Leeds, in 2018, are the only Christmas leaders not to seal the deal.

No one has won automatic promotion from outside the play-off places but that safety net has allowed 11th-placed Fulham and Aston Villa and last season's 15th-placed side, Luton Town, to book a ticket at Wembley.

Hull City are currently sixth, with a three-point cushion going into the weekend.

History, though, only tells you what has happened in the past. With a manager in Daniel Farke who has two Championship titles on his CV at Norwich City, and a squad of real depth, Leeds should enjoy being the hunters in the new year.

In Premier League terms, this ought to be the most telling Christmas Day of the last few years, with more games played – 18 for the vast majority – than in any season since Covid-19. By the time 2024 starts we will be into the second half of the campaign.

The make-up of the bottom three – newly-promoted Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United in an order to be decided at the weekend – is what most have been predicting since before the first ball was kicked.

Everton have already clawed back a 10-point deduction only scrubbed off for financial fair play offences in late November and might be able to further chip away at it when their appeal is heard, with many viewing the punishment as excessive.

Whilst the title race is shaping up nicely, things at the sharp end of the table look depressingly set in stone. The reality, though, is it rarely works out that way.

Only in the behind-closed-doors season of 2020-21 have the three turkeys at the bottom of the Christmas Day table (Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United) all been goosed on the final day.

Three times in the last 10 years (2022, 2015 and 2013), two of the teams in the bottom three have scrambled out by May.

Even being bottom of the pile is not the killer it once was.

The Premier League was 12 years-old before Bryan Robson's West Bromwich Albion became the first team bottom at Christmas to avoid relegation but three – Sunderland in 2013, Leicester the following year and Wolverhampton Wanderers have all done it in the last 10 years.

Sunderland and Wolves changed managers, in October and November respectively, to escape. Sheffield United and, on Wednesday, Nottingham Forest are the only Premier League clubs so far to roll the dice, bringing in Chris Wilder and Nuno Espirito Santo respectively.

But even after Wilder inspired victory over Brentford in his second game, the Blades are only on eight points, the same as Burnley, one fewer than Luton. That might represent a huge improvement on 2020, when Wilder's Blades had just two, but the fewest points any team has had at Christmas without being relegated in the last decade is 10 – Sunderland, a Newcastle United team about to enter their first transfer window under Saudi Arabian ownership and Leicester, who would win the title 17 months later.

But if the Foxes are an example of what can go right, they are also a warning about what can go wrong too. Last Christmas they were 13th in the table, this Yuletide they are slumming it in the Championship.

It is a strange quirk that four 14th-placed teams have gone down in the last 10 years, including Middlesbrough in 2016. Bournemouth had that dubious distinction in 2019-20, having had 19 points from 18 games when the crackers were pulled.

They currently sit 14th. With 19 points – the same tally as Stoke City in 2017 and Norwich four years earlier.

With four wins and a draw in their last five games after a slow start under Andoni Iraola, another Cherries capitulation looks unlikely in 2024, but it is a pretty scary ghost of Christmas past. History says the Blades have it all to do to put the frighteners on them.