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 look like complete chumps.
00:16You see, it's not enough to simply win the Premier League, I mean even Blackburn have managed that,
00:21but the key is to win it by absolutely miles.
00:24That's how you get remembered in this game, and arguably even more important than that,
00:28that's how you qualify for this list.
00:31I'm Adam Cleary, this is 442, and these are the 10 most dominant Premier League champions ever.
00:36Number 10, Manchester United, 1994.
00:39A mere two weeks into the 93-94 season, Manchester United 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 games of that season.
00:54With Eric Cantona somehow getting a five-match ban for sending-offs 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 some 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 Villa in the League Cup final prevented them from doing a domestic treble.
01:16Not bad.
01:16Number 9, Leicester City, 2016.
01:19Placing everyone thinks about Leicester's shock Premier League win as something of a plucky underdog story,
01:24but even a cursory revision of the numbers that year shows that in reality, they battered everyone.
01:29Despite starting the season as candidates for relegation, they romped home to the title with an astounding 10 points to spare,
01:36and only three defeats all season.
01:39Three.
01:39Leicester.
01:40Three defeats.
01:41All season.
01:42That is astonishing.
01:43And yeah, sure, they were helped by several of the usual contenders having disastrous seasons,
01:48Man United were 5th, Liverpool were 8th, and Chelsea were 10th,
01:51but their 81-point haul would have had them there or thereabouts in both the previous two seasons.
01:56Annoyingly for a fairytale, they clinched the title not by actually playing,
02:00but by Chelsea 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.
02:08Number 8, Manchester United, 2001.
02:11Just the 10-point winning margin for Manchester United two years after they won the treble,
02:16and it likely could have been a lot more had they not somehow lost their last three games of the season.
02:20And just the 60 goals that campaigned for the forward options of Teddy Sheringham, Andy Cole, Dwight York,
02:26and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, as well as one of David Beckham's most prolific seasons in Manchester with nine.
02:31Arsenal offered something of a challenge, but were practically as close to Man United in first as they were to Sunderland in seventh,
02:36and so not exactly what you'd call close, and the Gunners getting thumped 3-0 at home somehow by Middlesbrough handed the title to Ferguson.
02:44For a change.
02:45Number 7, oh good, it's Man United again, 2013.
02:49Yeah, look, right, Man United are on this list a lot because to be blunt,
02:52Alex Ferguson was very good at building some of the all-time great teams.
02:56But the thing is, right, the thing, the thing about this team, the thing is, they weren't one of them.
03:03Sure, you've got Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney in here, but where a few years prior they were in a team with Tevez, Vidic and Ronaldo,
03:10here they were lining up with Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck and Phil Jones.
03:15That Ferguson managed to extract not only a tune, but an emphatically championship winning one out of them,
03:21might honestly be the most impressive thing he did in his entire time at 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 11 points more than Manchester City in second.
03:42Van Persie's hat-trick against Aston Villa, including, yes, that volley, sealed the title in spectacular fashion,
03:48and football's just, it's just really simple sometimes, isn't it?
03:51Number 6, Manchester City, 2021.
03:53Yeah, Guardiola and the boys were barely challenged for the Premier League in 20-21,
04:00with Manchester United their closest competitor a dismal 12 points behind.
04:04Impressive, sure, but insanely so when you consider that on Christmas Day, they were somehow 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.
04:19They completed the most consecutive wins by a top-flight English team in all competitions ever.
04:24At 21, they went 28 games unbeaten overall, and set the record for consecutive away league wins at 12.
04:32There's a life lesson in there somewhere about not giving up and just doing your best, 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 in self-confidence,
04:46many in England still wondered whether he had the skills to back up his special claims.
04:51I'm not one of the bottle. I think I'm a special one.
04:57And he did, yes, because Chelsea promptly beat Manchester United in his first league game in charge,
05:03didn't lose one until October, and then managed to avoid defeat for the entire rest of the season.
05:09They amassed a scarcely believable 95 points and shipped a ludicrous 15 goals.
05:15In fact, they were tighter at the back than...
05:19Oh, sorry, two seconds.
05:21Hello?
05:23Oh, hello, my lawyer.
05:24You don't want me to do that joke.
05:26Okay.
05:26It 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 and that sort of financial clout,
05:38that next season was probably just a foregone conclusion, and lo and behold, let me check.
05:43Ah, yes, it was.
05:44Number four, Arsenal 2004.
05:47It says an awful lot about the teams currently occupying our top three spots here that this Arsenal side,
05:52who no other team beats across an entire season, are somehow only sitting in fourth.
05:58Now immortalised as the Invincibles, I'm sure you've probably heard of them,
06:01they did something that no side had managed since Preston in 1889, the year the drinking straw was invented.
06:09Astoundingly, they went into 2004 somehow trailing Manchester United,
06:13but a mid-January 2-0 win at Aston Villa the day after United had suffered a shock defeat to Wolves,
06:19moved them triumphantly to the top of the table, and there they stayed.
06:22Thierry Henry managed 30 goals, which obviously helped,
06:25but in truth this 11-point winning margin was enabled more by the perfect balance of beauty and guile
06:31afforded by the squad as a whole.
06:33And just to make the perfect season even more perfecter,
06:37to think is a word, they won the league of all places at White Hart Lane.
06:41Number three, Liverpool 2020.
06:44Arguably one of the most imperious and dominant title wins in the history of English football,
06:48Liverpool finished the season 18 points ahead of second place Manchester City,
06:52but 33 points ahead of Manchester United in third.
06:56And all this despite the 2019-2020 season being disrupted by...
07:02Well, you remember the Zoom 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 of Manchester City
07:13and 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 triple-figure point tall,
07:26finishing 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 ball after Chelsea defeat Man City,
07:36but it happens also at a time when you're technically not even allowed within two metres of your own dad.
07:41Number 2, Manchester United, 2000.
07:44Now, I'm not sure if they've ever mentioned it, but the 1998-1999 season was a pretty big deal for Manchester United
07:52on account of them winning a domestic and European treble.
07:55But whereas they were just one point clear of Arsenal that year, they followed up in 1999-2000 with an 18-point winning margin.
08:04A 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough in January moved the Red Devils into first place,
08:08and they remained there for the entire remainder of the season,
08:11losing just one of their final 18 fixtures.
08:14They wrapped up their sixth and easily most convincing Premier League title with a 3-1 win away to Southampton,
08:20but just, oh, I'm pretty impressed here Adam, but is there anything 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.
08:30They had Mark Bosnich in goal, and this was the Massimo Taivi season.
08:35Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
08:36And number one, Manchester City 2018.
08:40Not 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 them the league in previous seasons,
08:56but still left them 19 points adrift here.
09:00Just to really hammer this home, okay, you would have to have given them another seven games,
09:05all of which they'd need to win for them to catch City.
09:08That is ridiculous.
09:11And they broke all kinds of records that season as well.
09:14Most away points at 50, most wins at 32,
09:17most away wins at 16,
09:19most goals at 106,
09:21biggest goal difference at plus 79,
09:24most consecutive wins at 18,
09:26most consecutive away wins at 11,
09:29and the joint earliest Premier League title win with five games to spare.
09:35Aguero, Sterling, Jesus and Sane all struck double figures,
09:38and even Fernandinho,
09:40a man whose name translates from Portuguese as,
09:43I just pass it sideways, yes boss,
09:46got five.
09:47Now, technically, they secured the title when Manchester United suffered a shock home defeat to West Brom,
09:52but, in truth, it was over as a contest when they batted Watford 6-0 away
09:57and went to the top of the table in only the fifth game of the season.
10:01That is, plain and simple,
10:04how you do it.
10:04And that's it, that's the video.
10:06Thank you so very much for watching and making it all the way till the end.
10:10Somebody's keen.
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10:22Until next time though, thank you once again for watching.
10:24I do hope you enjoyed yourself and I'll see you soon.
10:27Goodbye.
10:27Goodbye.
10:27Goodbye.