Burnley are examining Scott Parker’s future with the club and Steven Gerrard has emerged as one of the names under consideration. The Clarets’ recent record highlights the gap between the divisions: Burnley shipped just 16 goals in 46 Championship games but conceded 17 in their first nine Premier League outings.

Parker’s record in the second tier remains strong. Despite his struggles in the top flight, he has won three promotions with three different clubs in six years, a track record that some argue makes him well suited to restore Burnley to the Premier League. Club owner Alan Pace is set to hold discussions with Parker over his future and, should a replacement be required, Gerrard’s name has been floated by The Guardian. Craig Bellamy is also mentioned as a potential candidate; he served as Vincent Kompany’s assistant while at Turf Moor, though it is unclear whether he would leave his current post. Gerrard, by contrast, is demonstrably unattached.

Bristol City have gone further in their interest, offering Gerrard a permanent role before the season has finished, according to The Independent. The Robins appointed Roy Hodgson on a short-term basis to oversee the final seven games; the 78-year-old has taken six points from his first half-dozen fixtures and moved Bristol City into mid-table ahead of the season-ender against Stoke City.

Former manager Gerhard Struber has spoken of a muddled infrastructure at the club. Bristol City are closing in on appointing James Ellis as sporting director; his immediate task may be persuading Gerrard to accept the brief before any extensive squad changes. As ex-Robins midfielder Gary Owers fretted earlier this season: “For City to progress it could be a total rebuild in the summer.”

Burnley present a different proposition. They will benefit from parachute payments and already have experienced Championship operators, leaving arguably less work to return to the top flight.

Gerrard’s managerial timeline is recent and public: Rangers (July 1, 2018–Nov. 10, 2021, 192 games), Aston Villa (Nov. 11, 2021–Oct. 20, 2022, 40 games) and Al Ettifaq (July 3, 2023–Jan. 30, 2025, 55 games). It has been 15 months since he left Al Ettifaq. He took nine months to move to the Kingdom after parting ways with Aston Villa in October 2022, which remains his last and only experience of Premier League (or English) management. Patience is no issue for the 45-year-old.

“There’s a part of me that still feels that there’s a bit of unfinished business in terms of wanting to go in and face another couple of exciting challenges,” Gerrard told Rio Ferdinand on his self-titled podcast earlier this season. “But I want a certain type of challenge.

“If in an ideal world they come available, I’ll jump at them. If they don’t, I won’t go back in. I want to be at a team that’s going to compete to win because I think that suits me better.”

Leicester City’s relegation back to the third tier is the product of years of compounding errors on and off the pitch. “This kind of low is going to sting for a few days,” Leicester City manager Gary Rowett generously predicted. “I will look in the mirror and take the responsibility,” Rowett fronted up once Championship demotion was provisionally confirmed with a draw against Hull City on Tuesday night. Barring a dramatic points deduction for West Bromwich Albion, who are facing a sanction and sit 10 clear of the Foxes with two games to play, this will be the club’s second ever season in League One.

Financial choices help explain why. Wages to revenue turnover moved widely across the decade: 62% in 2015–16, 48% in 2016–17, rising through 75% (2017–18), 84% (2018–19), 105% (2019–20), 85% (2020–21 and 2021–22), peaking at 116% in 2022–23 before 102% in 2023–24 and 82% in 2024–25. By the time Leicester slipped out of the Premier League in 2023, “for every $1 they earned, $1.16 was being spent only on wages.”

On the field recruitment and poor timing compounded the finances. Brendan Rodgers warned in the summer of 2022: “When you want to compete, you have to add quality. But in the last two windows, we haven’t been able to do that.” The club spent heavily in search of quality yet failed to convert that into sustained Champions League qualification despite 567 combined days in the top four across 2019–20 and 2020–21.

Ruinous recruitment left gaps and lost value. Jonny Evans, Youri Tielemans, Çağlar Söyüncü and Ayoze Pérez all left Leicester in the summer of 2024 for a combined transfer fee of precisely $0, and eight first-team players from the current roster will also leave the club for free this summer.

Boardroom and leadership issues have been present since the tragic passing of owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in October 2018. “He was so influential,” former Leicester defender Robert Huth said of the late owner in an interview with BBC Sport. “He had a ‘get stuff done’ attitude.” Huth also reflected on the burden placed on Vichai’s son: “Top is younger than me,” Huth continued. “He lost his dad, he now has to run King Power. The spotlight is on him. It’s very easy to criticize. He lost his father in public surroundings and it’s going to have an effect. He had to take over the company when he was 33. You’re a young man, you look at your dad for guidance, and it was taken away from him overnight.”

Enzo Maresca aside, the rogues gallery of coaches since Rodgers’s exit has failed to find stability. The three interim appointments epitomize the chronically unsuccessful nature of Leicester’s appointments. Defensively the team has suffered too: only two teams conceded more set-piece goals than Leicester, and the club has dropped 30 points from winning positions this season, the most of any team in England’s second tier.

At the start of last season Tottenham Hotspur were ranked by England’s leading soccer think tank as the “best run club” across the nation’s entire pyramid. Fewer than two years later the club faces the prospect of its first relegation in almost half a century and a dramatic revenue collapse.

Financial estimates put the potential shortfall between $311–372 million (£230–275 million) when comparing a 2025–26 Premier League season to a 2026–27 Championship campaign. Data estimated by BBC Sport and Swiss Ramble and converted from pounds to dollars show broadcast income falling from $173 million to $73 million, Champions League broadcast revenue dropping from $96 million to zero, matchday receipts falling from $177 million to $107 million and commercial income easing from $377 million to $303 million. The total moves from $823 million to $483 million in the projections.

Tottenham’s most exposed income stream is broadcast money. The club stands to earn around $178 million from Premier League television money this term; the Championship offers nothing like that figure. Parachute payments would offer roughly $61 million and the EFL central distribution is listed at $6.8 million, but those sums are small compared with Premier League receipts.

Commercial deals also risk reduction because sponsors such as Nike and AIA have clauses that could push payments down, potentially by about 20 percent. Matchday income could fall by about 40 percent as ticket prices and attendances adjust to a lower division.

The club reported the ninth highest revenue in its last released accounts and is set to report higher figures this season after a run to the Champions League last 16. Even after a projected drop of around 41 percent seen in recent relegations, Tottenham would still exceed the Championship record revenue posted by Leeds United in 2024–25.

“I reckon it’s going to be somewhere in the region of £250 million to £275 million compared to the current season,” soccer finance expert Kieran Maguire predicted on The Sports Agent podcast earlier this month. “That’s taking into consideration the fact that Spurs have the second highest yield in terms of how much they extract per fan, per match. It’s a very sophisticated operation they have … Then, of course, there won’t be the participation in Europe next season.”

Reports say Daniel Levy added a 50% wage cut clause in player contracts for relegation. Professor Rob Wilson warned: “Some other clubs could even have 90% relegation clauses or agreements for players to move,” Wilson told The i . “But because Spurs have been relatively stable in the Premier League, they don’t have the clause they would need in order to properly survive.

“It’s nowhere near enough. You need a minimum 75% relegation clause in order to balance your books when you go down.”