10 Most Dominant Premier League Champions Ever
Sometimes it isn't enough to just win English football's greatest prize... you have to do it in style.
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00:00To quote Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and you'd be surprised how often I do that,
00:07the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.
00:10But to quote, literally me though, the greatest victory is that which makes your opponents
00:15look like complete chumps.
00:16You see, it's not enough to simply win the Premier League, I mean even Blackburn have
00:20managed that, but the key is to win it by absolutely miles.
00:25That's how you get remembered in this game, and arguably even more important than that,
00:29that's how you qualify for this list.
00:30I'm Adam Cleary, this is 442, and these are the 10 most dominant Premier League champions
00:36ever.
00:3710.
00:38Manchester United, 1994 A mere two weeks into the 93-94 season, Manchester
00:43United went away to Aston Villa and won thanks to two goals from Lee Sharp, remember him.
00:48This win sent them to the top of the league, and there they stayed for the remaining 38
00:53games of that season.
00:54With Eric Cantona somehow getting a five-match ban for sending off in consecutive games,
00:58Alan Shearer's Blackburn almost offered a title chase.
01:02But despite cutting their lead to mere goal difference at one point, ultimately came up
01:05some eight points short.
01:07Womp womp.
01:08The title was secured with a 2-1 victory away to Ipswich Town, and only defeat to Aston
01:12Villa in the League Cup final prevented them from doing a domestic treble.
01:16Not bad.
01:179.
01:18Leicester City, 2016 Placing everyone thinks about Leicester's
01:21shock Premier League win as something of a plucky underdog story, but even a cursory
01:25revision of the numbers that year shows that in reality, they battered everyone.
01:30Despite starting the season as candidates for relegation, they romped home to the title
01:33with an astounding 10 points to spare, and only three defeats all season.
01:39Three.
01:40Leicester.
01:41Three defeats.
01:42All season.
01:43That is astonishing.
01:44And yeah, sure, they were helped by several of the usual contenders having disastrous
01:47seasons, Man United were 5th, Liverpool were 8th and Chelsea were 10th, but their 81-point
01:52haul would have had them there or thereabouts in both the previous two seasons.
01:57Annoyingly for a fairy tale, they clinched the title not by actually playing, but by
02:00Chelsea stopping Spurs taking all three points in one of the final games of the season.
02:04Although judging by the celebrations, I don't think anybody cared even one bit.
02:088.
02:09Manchester United, 2001 Just the 10-point winning margin for Manchester
02:13United two years after they won the treble, and it likely could have been a lot more had
02:17they not somehow lost their last three games of the season.
02:21And just the 60 goals that campaigned for the forward options of Terry Sheringham, Andy
02:25Cole, Dwight York and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, as well as one of David Beckham's most prolific
02:29seasons in Manchester with nine.
02:31Arsenal offered something of a challenge, but were practically as close to Man United
02:34in first as they were to Sunderland in seventh, so not exactly what you'd call close, and
02:38the Gunners getting thumped 3-0 at home somehow by Middlesbrough handed the title to Ferguson.
02:44For a change.
02:457.
02:46Oh good, it's Man United again.
02:482013.
02:49But look, right, Man United are on this list a lot, because to be blunt, Alex Ferguson
02:53was very good at building some of the all-time great teams.
02:57But the thing is, right, the thing, the thing about this team, the thing is, they weren't
03:02one of them.
03:03Sure, you've got Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney in here, but where a few years prior
03:07they were in a team with Tevez, Vidic and Ronaldo, here they were lining up with Tom
03:12Cleverley, Danny Welbeck and Phil Jones.
03:15That Ferguson managed to extract not only a tune, but an emphatically championship-winning
03:20one out of them might honestly be the most impressive thing he did in his entire time
03:25at that club.
03:26And how did he do it, do you ask?
03:28Well, it was very simple, he stole Robin Van Persie from Arsenal, and 30 goals later, voila!
03:34They had the worst defence in the entire top four, but still somehow managed 20 goals and
03:3911 points more than Manchester City in second.
03:42Van Persie's hat-trick against Aston Villa, including, yes, that volley, sealed the title
03:46in spectacular fashion, and football's just, it's just really simple sometimes, isn't it?
03:54Yeah, Guardiola and the boys were barely challenged for the Premier League in 20-21, with Manchester
04:00United, their closest competitor, a dismal 12 points behind.
04:04Impressive, sure, but insanely so when you consider that on Christmas Day, they were
04:09somehow 8th in the league.
04:11Yep, and yet still, somehow it became a record-breaking season.
04:15They achieved a remarkable winning streak of 82 days from December to March, they completed
04:20the most consecutive wins by a top-flight English team in all competitions ever at 21,
04:25they went 28 games unbeaten overall, and set the record for consecutive away league wins
04:31at 12.
04:32There's a life lesson in there somewhere about not giving up and just doing your best,
04:37and I don't know, find it yourself.
04:38Number 5, Chelsea, 2005.
04:41Now while it was immediately clear that new boss Jose Mourinho wasn't exactly lacking
04:45in self-confidence, many in England still wondered whether he had the skills to back
04:49up his special claims.
04:51I'm not one of the bottle, I think I'm a special one.
04:58And he did, yes, because Chelsea promptly beat Manchester United in his first league
05:02game in charge, didn't lose one until October, and then managed to avoid defeat for the entire
05:07rest of the season.
05:09They amassed a scarcely believable 95 points and shipped a ludicrous 15 goals, in fact
05:16they were tighter at the back than- oh, sorry, two seconds, hello, oh hello my lawyer, you
05:25don't want me to do that joke, okay.
05:27It was Chelsea's first title in 50 years and was achieved away to Bolton in late April
05:31thanks to, fittingly, a brace from Frank Lampard.
05:34The feeling at the time was that with this sort of team, having this sort of manager
05:37and that sort of financial clout, that next season was probably just a foregone conclusion
05:41and lo and behold, let me check, ah yes it was.
05:47It says an awful lot about the teams currently occupying our top three spots here that this
05:51Arsenal side, who no other team beat across an entire season, are somehow only sitting
05:57in fourth.
05:58Now immortalised as the Invincibles, I'm sure you've probably heard of them, they
06:01did something that no side had managed since Preston in 1889, the year the drinking straw
06:08was invented.
06:09Astoundingly, they went into 2004 somehow trailing Manchester United, but a mid-January
06:142-0 win at Aston Villa the day after United had suffered a shock defeat to Wolves moved
06:19them triumphantly to the top of the table, and there they stayed.
06:22Thierry Henry managed 30 goals, which obviously helped, but in truth this 11 point winning
06:27margin was enabled more by the perfect balance of beauty and guile afforded by the squad
06:32as a whole.
06:33And just to make the perfect season even more perfecter, to think it is a word, they won
06:39the league of all places at White Hart Lane.
06:413.
06:42Liverpool 2020 Arguably one of the most imperious and dominant
06:46title wins in the history of English football, Liverpool finished the season 18 points ahead
06:51of second place Manchester City, but 33 points ahead of Manchester United in third.
06:56And all this despite the 2019-2020 season being disrupted by… well, you remember the
07:03Zoom calls, the sourdough, the hand sanitiser, let's not relive all that now.
07:08In fact, before that whole carry-on started, they were an eye-watering 25 points ahead
07:12of Manchester City and had won 27 times after 29 games, which is frankly ridiculous.
07:20Their nearest challengers battering them 4-0 at the restart did nothing but deny them a
07:24triple-figure points haul, finishing on 99.
07:28But I mean, it's just typical though, isn't it?
07:29You wait 30 years for a league title and not only does it happen without you kicking a
07:33ball after Chelsea defeat Man City, but it happens also at a time when you're technically
07:39not even allowed within 2 metres of your own dad.
07:412.
07:42Manchester United 2000 Now, I'm not sure if they've ever mentioned
07:47it, but the 1998-1999 season was a pretty big deal for Manchester United on account
07:53of them winning a domestic and European treble.
07:55But whereas they were just 1 point clear of Arsenal that year, they followed up in 1999-2000
08:01with an 18-point winning margin.
08:04A 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough in January moved the Red Devils into first place and
08:08they remained there for the entire remainder of the season, losing just one of their final
08:1318 fixtures.
08:15They wrapped up their 6th and easily most convincing Premier League title with a 3-1
08:19win away to Southampton, but just, oh, I'm pretty impressed here Adam, but is there
08:23anything you can say to somehow make this more of an achievement?
08:27Well, yeah, it's funny you should ask that actually, because I can.
08:31They had Mark Bosnach in goal, and this was the Massimo Ta'ivi season.
08:35Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
08:371.
08:38Manchester City 2018 Not to sound like Dr Evil here, but 100 points.
08:45That is over 2.6 points per game.
08:49Second place Manchester United's 81-point haul would have been enough to actually win
08:54them the league in previous seasons, but still left them 19 points adrift here.
09:00Just to really hammer this home, you would have had to have given them another 7 games,
09:05all of which they'd need to win for them to catch City.
09:09That is ridiculous.
09:11And they broke all kinds of records that season as well.
09:14Most away points at 50, most wins at 32, most away wins at 16, most goals at 106, biggest
09:22goal difference at plus 79, most consecutive wins at 18, most consecutive away wins at
09:2811, and the joint earliest Premier League title win with 5 games to spare.
09:35Aguero, Sterling, Jesus and Sane all struck double figures, and even Fernandinho, a man
09:41whose name translates from Portuguese as I just pass it sideways, yes boss, got 5.
09:47Now technically they secured the title when Manchester United suffered a shock home defeat
09:51to West Brom, but in truth it was over as a contest when they battered Watford 6-0 away
09:56and went to the top of the table in only the fifth game of the season.
10:01That is, plain and simple, how you do it.