As Arsenal moved seven points clear in this season’s title race, it sparked debate in For Foot Sake HQ about the greatest Premier League Title Races of all time. While this year has been a rollercoaster, with many more twists and turns sure to come, it’ll have to go some distance to join this list. We went back almost thirty years and looked at some of English football’s great races for the Premier League crown. There are some absolute crackers, first time winners, last-minute winners, all-time bottles and some of the league’s most baffling moments.
6. 1994/95 – Blackburn Rovers’ Finest Hour
It was the season that proved the Premier League was no longer Manchester United’s playground. Blackburn Rovers, bankrolled by Jack Walker’s millions and driven by the prolific Alan Shearer, pushed United all the way in one of the division’s most compelling early title races.
Shearer was irresistible. 34 league goals, a partnership with Chris Sutton that terrorised defences all season, and Kenny Dalglish quietly marshalling it all from the dugout. Blackburn led for much of the campaign and United, despite their own quality, simply couldn’t shake them.
What made the finale so extraordinary was the manner of it. Going into the final day, Blackburn needed only to avoid defeat at Anfield, a ground that had rarely been kind to title challengers, while United needed to win at West Ham and hope Rovers slipped up. Blackburn lost. United could only draw. And for an agonising few minutes, the title looked like it might be snatched away at the very last breath.
But it wasn’t enough. United’s dropped points at Upton Park meant that even Blackburn’s Anfield defeat couldn’t cost them. Rovers held on and Jack Walker wept in the stands, the emotion of a lifelong dream fulfilled in the most nerve-shredding way imaginable.
It remains the last time a club outside of the established elite won the Premier League title without it being considered a seismic shock. Blackburn were worthy champions, Shearer was unstoppable, and the race itself was a reminder that in football, nothing is guaranteed until the final whistle of the final game.
A brilliant, if slightly forgotten, Premier League title race.
5. 2023/24 – Arsenal’s Heartbreak, City’s History
If endurance was the measure of a Premier League title race, this one would top the list. For the second consecutive season, Arsenal pushed Manchester City to the very limit, only to fall agonisingly short in what was becoming an increasingly familiar story for Mikel Arteta’s side.
City entered the campaign as three-time defending champions and, on paper, had every reason to believe a fourth consecutive title was beyond even them. Arsenal disagreed. For long stretches of the season, the Gunners looked not just capable of winning it, but destined to. Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard were electric, the defensive structure was resolute, and Arteta had built something that genuinely felt ready to end Arsenal’s 20-year wait.
But City, as they so often do, found another gear. Erling Haaland, despite a relatively inconsistent season by his own extraordinary standards, delivered when it mattered. Rodri was imperious in midfield. And Pep Guardiola, written off by some as the pressure mounted, steered his side home with the calm authority of a man who had been there many times before.
The pivotal moment came in April, when Arsenal lost at home to Aston Villa. It was, in the context of an otherwise remarkably consistent season, their one significant stumble, and it proved fatal. A single home defeat, against a side with nothing to play for, ultimately the difference between glory and another near miss.
City won a historic fourth consecutive Premier League title, a feat no club had ever achieved. Arsenal were left to reflect on how fine the margins truly are. Better than before, closer than ever, but still without the prize. For neutrals it was compelling viewing. For Arsenal fans, it was becoming an all too familiar kind of agony.
4. 2013/14 – So close, Stevie
If you wanted to write a script about heartbreak, you couldn’t do better than Liverpool’s 2013/14 Premier League title race. A team playing some of the most exhilarating football the Premier League had ever seen, a generational talent in Luis Suarez at the absolute peak of his powers, and a finale so cruel it almost defied belief.
Brendan Rodgers had built something special. Suarez was unstoppable, 31 goals, a level of individual brilliance that had not been seen in the league for years. Daniel Sturridge was the perfect foil. Philippe Coutinho pulled the strings. Liverpool played with a joy and an intensity that made them virtually impossible to live with, and by spring they had moved to the brink of their first league title since 1990.
Then came Anfield. Chelsea. And the moment that will define Steven Gerrard’s career as much as anything he ever achieved. A simple pass, a slip, and Demba Ba was through on goal. The stadium fell silent. Gerrard, the captain, the heartbeat of the club, had gifted Chelsea a goal at the most critical moment imaginable. Liverpool lost 2-0. The title race had shifted in an instant.
But even then, Liverpool had enough to win it. Until they didn’t. A trip to Selhurst Park, a 3-0 lead, and what followed was one of the most baffling collapses in Premier League history. Palace scored three times in the final twenty minutes to draw 3-3. Manchester City took full advantage and Liverpool, a team that had threatened to produce one of the great title winning seasons, were left with nothing.
Suarez never played in the Premier League again. The moment had passed. It remains one of football’s great what ifs.
3. 1998/99 – The Treble, The Bottle, and the Night at Leeds
In isolation, Manchester United winning the treble is one of the greatest stories in English football history. In the context of the Premier League title race that preceded it, it is also a story about Arsenal’s capitulation at a crucial moment, and how a single result at Elland Road changed the course of football history.
Arsenal entered the season as defending champions. Arsene Wenger had built a side of genuine quality — Bergkamp, Anelka, Overmars, Vieira — and there was every reason to believe they could retain the title. For much of the campaign they were right there, matching United stride for stride in what was a genuinely absorbing two-horse race.
Then came Leeds. Arsenal, needing a result at Elland Road to keep the pressure firmly on United, lost. It was the kind of result that title winning sides simply cannot afford, and in the context of what followed, it proved catastrophic. United just need to win on the final day, at home to Tottenham, enemies of Arsenal, Sir Alex Ferguson’s men didn’t look back.
What made it all the more remarkable was what United went on to achieve. The Premier League was just the first piece of a treble that culminated in that extraordinary night in Barcelona, when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer prodded home in injury time to complete one of the most dramatic European Cup final victories ever witnessed. Sheringham and Solskjaer, both substitutes, both scoring in the final two minutes. Football at its most theatrical.
But strip away the European glory and the FA Cup, and the Premier League title that season was built on Arsenal’s failure at Leeds as much as United’s own brilliance. One result, one night in Yorkshire, and the course of English football history was altered forever.
2. 2021/22 – The Greatest Points Tally That Never Won the Title
There have been closer title races in Premier League history. There have been more dramatic final days. But there has never been a season quite like 2021/22, where two sides produced points tallies that would have won the league in virtually any other campaign, and only one of them could be champion.
Liverpool and Manchester City engaged in the most relentless, punishing, breathtaking two-horse race the Premier League has ever produced. City, under Guardiola, were the model of consistency. Liverpool, under Klopp, were ferocious, emotional and utterly driven by the possibility of an unprecedented quadruple. Both sides refused to blink. Both sides kept winning. Week after week, neither gave the other an inch.
The numbers tell the story. Liverpool finished with 92 points. In any other season in Premier League history, that would have been enough to win the title comfortably. It wasn’t. City finished with 93. One point. One solitary point separated the two greatest sides England had produced in a generation, across 38 games of extraordinary football.
And then came the final day. City trailed Aston Villa 2-0 at the Etihad with the title slipping away in real time. Liverpool were winning at Anfield. For a brief, extraordinary moment, the trophy was heading to Merseyside. What followed was a City comeback so emphatic and so rapid it felt almost supernatural, Gundogan pulling one back, Rodri levelling, and then Gundogan again to complete a stunning 3-2 win that left the Etihad in raptures. Liverpool could only watch.
Liverpool won the FA Cup and the League Cup. They reached the Champions League final. By any normal measure, it was an exceptional season. But the Premier League title, the one they wanted most, went to City by a single point across 38 games. That is the measure of how remarkable both sides were in 2021/22, and why this Premier League title race stands apart from almost everything that came before it.
1. 2011/12 – Agueroooooo
There is a moment in football that transcends sport. A moment so visceral, so improbable, so perfectly constructed that it feels less like a sporting event and more like fiction. The 2011/12 Premier League title race produced that moment, and it will never be forgotten by anyone who witnessed it.
Manchester City and Manchester United went toe to toe all season in a derby rivalry that consumed English football. United, under Ferguson, were formidable as ever. City, under Mancini, were flush with ambition, investment and a squad assembled to end their long wait for a title. For months neither side could shake the other, the gap between them ebbing and flowing in the most compelling fashion.
With eight games to go, City looked dead and buried. A catastrophic 1-0 defeat at Arsenal sent them eight points behind United with the title seemingly gone. What followed was one of the great comebacks in Premier League history, City winning game after game, United dropping points, the gap closing until, impossibly, it had disappeared entirely.
Going into the final day, the sides were level on points. City hosted QPR. United travelled to Sunderland. It should have been straightforward. It was anything but. QPR, battling relegation, refused to lie down. City fell behind. United were winning. The title, somehow, was heading back to Old Trafford.
And then. Edin Dzeko headed City level. And then came the 93rd minute. Sergio Aguero received the ball, drove at goal, and hit it into the net. The Etihad exploded. Martin Tyler lost his mind. Aguerooooo echoed around grounds, living rooms and pubs across the country and has never really stopped echoing since.
City won the title on goal difference. The greatest final day English football has ever seen, and the greatest title race to go with it.
So there you have it — six of the greatest Premier League title races to ever be produced. Heartbreak, collapse, comebacks and one of the most iconic moments in sporting history. The beauty of the Premier League is that every season has the potential to produce something that belongs on this list. Whether this season has what it takes to join these giants, only time will tell. But one thing is certain, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
