The surprisingly good XI who stayed loyal after relegation to Championship | OneFootball

Relegation from the Premier League normally results in a mass exodus, but some stalwarts end up sticking around in the second tier.

Several of this XI left after failing to secure promotion at the first attempt, but it’s reassuring to know a single Championship season didn’t end their career.

We’ve dusted off the history books to compile this XI of players who stayed loyal after relegation, lining up in a classic 4-4-2 formation.

GK: Rob Green (West Ham)

West Ham’s 2003 team were infamously ‘Too Good to Go Down‘, but nobody was saying that about the Hammers squad that dropped eight years later under Avram Grant.

Green’s reputation had already been torched by *that* World Cup howler in 2010, meaning there wasn’t a queue of clubs waiting to rescue him from Upton Park.

The goalkeeper stayed under Sam Allardyce, helping West Ham make an instant return to the top flight.

He left for QPR in 2012, dropped a b*llock on his debut and was swiftly replaced by Julio Cesar en route to another relegation.

RB: Gary Kelly (Leeds)

Kelly not only stayed at Leeds after relegation in 2004, but he stayed until the infamous demotion to League One three years later.

A true club stalwart, the Irishman made 531 appearances over 15 years at Elland Road. Tellingly, 114 of them came after Leeds dropped out of the top flight.

By the end, he’d fallen out with owner Ken Bates and manager Dennis Wise. This is probably a compliment to Kelly as a person.

CB: Gary Breen (Coventry)

Breen stayed at Coventry after relegation in 2001, ending 33 years of top-flight football at Highfield Road.

The defender was unable to help the club bounce straight back and the Irishman left in the summer of 2002.

A string of superlative performances saw him improbably linked with Barcelona, while an ‘idiot doctor‘ scuppered a move to Inter Milan.

Breen ended up at West Ham instead, becoming a byword for defensive incompetence in their relegation season.

CB: Michael Keane (Burnley)

Keane has never been linked with Barcelona or Inter Milan, but has been an exceptionally solid Premier League defender for over a decade.

After dropping down with Burnley in 2015, Keane became a staunch part of the backline that won instant promotion and defied gravity to stay up under Sean Dyche.

He was rewarded with a £25million move to Everton, where the centre-back remains today after making over 250 club appearances.

LB: Stuart Pearce (Nottingham Forest)

The legendary Pearce spent over a decade at Nottingham Forest, staying after relegation in 1993 to captain the team back to the top flight.

Pearce maintained his starting spot for England too, unthinkable in an age where playing outside of the Premier League is akin to living without a smartphone.

RW: Georgi Kinkladze (Manchester City)

In a list of Manchester City’s best players of all time, written for The Times in 2009, Blue Moon’s Ric Turner described Kinkladze as “probably the most naturally gifted player I’ve ever seen at City”.

The riches of the Abu Dhabi era have shifted the goalposts somewhat, but the little Georgian was a cult hero at Maine Road during the 1990s.

Sporadic wonder goals failed to keep City up in 1996 and he also failed to prevent the club from going down again two years later.

Still, an absolutely delightful footballer. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia must have been taking notes.

CM: Michael Carrick (West Ham)

After going down with 42 points in 2003, the likes of Joe Cole, Paolo Di Canio, Glen Johnson, Trevor Sinclair and Frederic Kanoute all left West Ham.

David James and Jermain Defoe stuck around until January, the latter getting sent off three times before joining Tottenham for £7million.

Only Carrick stayed for the entire season in Division One, being named in the Team of the Year as the Hammers lost in the play-off final to Crystal Palace.

He’d reportedly agreed to join Arsenal, until Cesc Fabregas’ superlative performance in the 2004 Community Shield closed that avenue.

Carrick went to Spurs for a criminally low £2.5million, considering he moved to Manchester United two years later for around eight times that price.

CM: Kevin Nolan (Newcastle)

Newcastle’s 2008-09 squad was packed with household names, making their relegation both a shock and source of glee for all non-Geordies.

Nolan only joined in January from Bolton and stayed alongside the likes of Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Jonas Gutierrez, Steven Taylor and Andy Carroll.

The midfielder scored 17 goals as Newcastle topped the table with 102 points. He left for West Ham in 2011, helping them win promotion at the first attempt too.

LW: Jack Grealish (Aston Villa)

Grealish played 16 times in Aston Villa’s relegation season of 2015-16, setting an unwanted record as the hapless Villains lost all of them.

He stayed during Villa’s three years in the Championship, becoming a talismanic figure during a fallow period for the club.

The forward’s performances back in the Premier League eventually earned England recognition and a £100million move to Manchester City.

ST: Jamie Vardy (Leicester)

Whereas N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez left Leicester in the years after the improbable title win, Vardy remained loyal to the club despite relegation in 2023.

The striker scored 18 goals to fire Leicester straight back up and netted nine league goals in 2024-25 despite being hamstrung by age, injuries and incompetent team-mates.

Vardy left in the summer of 2025 with once again relegated Leicester deep in financial trouble. He’s now in Serie A with Cremonese.

ST: Pierre van Hooijdonk (Nottingham Forest)

Van Hooijdonk joined Nottingham Forest with the club in deep relegation trouble and the striker was unable to help the Reds avoid the drop in 1997.

The Netherlands international pledged his future to Forest and vowed to help win promotion back to the Premier League.

He kept his word, scoring 34 goals in 47 games to fire them back up, but felt betrayed by the club after they failed to strengthen sufficiently and blocked a move.

As a typically headstrong Dutchman, he threatened to go on strike and eventually left after another top-flight relegation in 1999.