Is squad size a factor in where your team finishes the season?

Is it a coincidence that Southampton’s squad was the biggest in the EPL and that they finished last by some considerable margin?

Sure, there are injuries, suspensions, mid-season transfers in and in Southampton’s case under performing players to take into account, so maybe you bring more players up from the reserves as the season progresses.

But if your squad is 36 how do you keep them all happy?

Potentially you are leaving up to 25 players on the bench if they were all fit! A disgruntled squad is not the best way to get the best out of the individual players.

To add weight to this 6 of the 7 teams with the biggest squads (those with 31+ players) finished in the bottom 6 positions in the league. Ipswich and Leicester were also relegated with the second equal biggest squads (equal with Wolves and Brighton)

By comparison the 4 teams with the smallest squads all finished in the top 7. Coincidence?

You could argue that Brighton finished 8^th with 32 players so this stat does not stand up but there are always outliers. Would be interesting to see where Brighton finish in 2025/26 if they continue with a squad of 32

There is another argument against a big squad. Surely your wage budget (not the actual bill) is spread thinner. Thinner means less money per player. If you are a team coming up from the Championship you will likely have less to spend that first year up.

Surely with a smaller squad the wages per player can be higher* and you may be able to attract better players, to help you stay up? That is assuming you are going to strengthen when moving up to the EPL, which most teams seem to need to do to some extent at least…

* If all players were paid the same, which they are not, but as an exercise in quantifying this argument:

 £100M wage bill divided by 32 players = £60,096/player/week = good player

£100M wage bill divided by 24 players = £80,128/player/week = better player?

One final point is that bigger squads can be justified if the team is playing a lot of games throughout the season such as the Cups and being in Europe, but Soton, Ipswich and Leicester were not involved in Europe. And progess to the latter stages of the Cups is surely not a priority when you have just come up from the Chamionship? Number 1 priority is got to be staying up.

We are kicked-off!

In God we trust; all others must bring data