2019/20 will mark the 28th edition of the Premier League.

Over it’s nearly three-decade existence, the world’s greatest domestic league has seen an array of memorable title-winning sides. Some have scraped home, while others have coasted to a title with weeks to spare, but all have lifted the same coveted prize.

When it comes to winning the title in style, the points tally is the main consideration, and in the Premier League’s 38-game era (1995/96 – present) one team alone stands prominent as the most stylish winner in existence.

Most Points, Goals, Wins and Away Wins

That team, obviously, is Manchester City, and 198 points over two seasons is an extraordinary tally.

If Pep Guardiola is not already the greatest Premier League manager of the past ten years, he certainly will be if current title odds are reflected in the standings come May 2020. Last season presented its own challenges, with City looking increasingly unlikely to retain the title at one point, before roaring back to win 14 consecutive matches as highlighted here – http://blog.marathonbet.co.uk/, in an article saluting the Premier League champions.

However, 2017/18 was the one that broke all records, with a late goal from Gabriel Jesus at Southampton being enough to see City reach the magic 100-point mark.

In practice, this meant that City had dropped just fourteen points all season, and the club’s tally of thirty-two wins also broke the existing record. Matching it in the season just gone also took a lot of character, and left nobody under any illusion that City are the team to beat.

The 2017/18 season also saw City score 106 goals, which also served to grant them the best title-winning goal difference (+79). Their aim, surely, will be to break that record in 2019/20, and with City bringing flawless form since February into the new season, Guardiola’s men unquestionably have the necessary momentum in their favour.

As an added bonus, City also boast the highest tally of away wins in any Premier League season, with their final-day victory at St Mary’s being the sixteenth of 2017/18.

Most pundits still think that a 100% season away from home is impossible, but having recovered so brilliantly to snatch the title away from Liverpool last season,

City – and all those who love the undisputed Premier League champions – must surely believe that anything is possible.

Fewest Defeats

City’s monopoly over all the meaningful Premier League records is almost complete. However, there is still only one team in history that has gone undefeated en-route to a Premier League title.

That team is, of course, Arsenal – also known eternally as the ‘Invincibles’ of 2003/04. A specially-commissioned gold trophy was produced to mark the occasion, when Arsene Wenger’s men did the once-unthinkable.

Fewest Goals Conceded

This is but an afterthought when potent teams like City are lifting a hard-fought title, but it is one more record for Guardiola’s men to break nonetheless.

Back in 2004/05, Chelsea conceded just 15 goals en-route to a first title in half a century, with John Terry a colossus in defence alongside William Gallas and Ricardo Carvalho, and expertly marshalled by Petr Cech.

Most Home Goals

Even though City have thrashed esteemed visitors to the Etihad Stadium over the last two seasons, the existing ‘home goals’ record lies with Chelsea, with the club picking up a third league title in six seasons back in 2010. Much of that hinged on a springtime scoring spree, where Chelsea racked up wins of 7-1, 7-0 and (on the final day) 8-0 at Stamford Bridge.

The home tally for City to beat is 68, and though Guardiola’s preference for patient build-up is rightly the much-effective priority, the more bloodthirsty City fan would undoubtedly love to see City take this particular record too.

Biggest Title-Winning Margin

It’s that class of 2017/18 again, and Guardiola’s first successful title campaign with City also saw City win by a newly-high margin of nineteen points. City’s century utterly dwarfed the meagre 81 attained by declining neighbours Manchester United, who will likely stand as the league’s most distant runners up for a very long time.

Better yet for City, it beat the eighteen-point margin by which United won the title in 1999/2000.

Longest Reign

However, that pan-millennial season stands at the mid-point of another record City look set to break. There can be no denying that the late 1990s and the late 2000s belonged to United, with Sir Alex Ferguson’s peerless management seeing United win three successive Premier League titles on two separate occasions.

No other team has managed this feat since, but City could easily remedy this in 2020. In doing so, they will also be poised to win an unprecedented quartet of successive English league titles in 2021.

Biggest Deficit Overturned

City themselves overturned a seven-point deficit to Liverpool last season, and that gap certainly looked like more of a chasm as the Premier League went into 2019. Naturally, City’s 2-1 win over Liverpool in early January proved pivotal.

However, this particular record remains in Manchester United’s possession. In the week prior to the FA Cup’s fourth round weekend in (January) 1996, the Red Devils trailed Newcastle United by 12 points, but then came the inevitable turnaround, and Kevin Keegan never got the title he would have so truly “loved”.

Longest Odds Defied

Prior to 2016, no team had overturned truly astronomic title odds to lift the big one. However, that all changed when, in the summer 2015, Claudio Ranieri cobbled together a squad of misfits, rejects and also-rans, and created history.

5000/1 was the price against a team that had only just avoided relegation in 2014/15, and amongst the ‘rejects’ were new signings Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante, both of whom had been shunned as youths in France for their lack of physical stature. Marc Albrighton, Danny Drinkwater and Danny Simpson were three Englishmen who never quite made the grade at their previous respective clubs, but formed a great bond on the field.

Most notable of all, however, was the presence of Jamie Vardy. Stockbridge Park Steels and Fleetwood were his battlegrounds prior to joining Leicester City, but he defied his modest past, breaking the record for the highest number of consecutive scoring appearances in the league.

Eighty-one points – a whole ten ahead of runners up Arsenal – was sufficient to see the Premier League trophy decorated in blue and gold. A few people also earned life-changing payouts from bookmakers, who are still wary of setting the bar too high, for fear of the same massive losses incurred in 2016!

Posted on June 24th, 2019 by scott
Filed under: Article