It’s a debate that can be heard every week in every ground, pub and living room around the country: whether your favourite team, or your biggest rivals, have under-achieved or over-achieved.

Who are the game’s biggest under-achievers and over-achievers? And how do you decide what constitutes ‘achievement’ anyway?

Here at The New Football Pools we’ve endeavoured to bring you – for the first time – the answers to those questions.

The report puts all 92 English league clubs on an equal footing so we can reveal, for the first time, which clubs have over-achieved during the Premier League era, and which ones have – sadly for their fans – under-achieved.

How have we calculated this?

Each club’s achievements have been ranked for each season since 1992 (when the Premier League and the new Football League structure were established) based on a complex array of statistics, including:

• The club’s ‘starting position’ in 1992
• Stadium capacity and average attendances 1992-2008
• Changes in club ownership and associated investments
• Financial difficulties, including administration
• Transfers in and out since 1992
• League and Cup performances each season

Each club starts from the same position in August 1992 (the ‘benchmark’ figure of 100), and then the factors listed above are used to calculate the club’s achievement rating for the season. This then becomes the benchmark for the following season. And so on, until we get to 2008.

Some of the results will surprise you, but we hope you enjoy debating it.