By Daragh O'Leary
A post recently (see here) looked at the drop off in form of League of Ireland champions in the seasons following their success. The post captured an ongoing issue in the League of Ireland where league success is often followed with a period of gradual decline, and unfortunately for Cork City, relegation. This post got me thinking about looking at the form of champions in the English Premier League the season after they won the league. Now while the Premiership doesn’t have nearly as big an issue with the decline in form of their league champions, there does still appear to be a dip in form.
It is very rare for a team to successfully defend their status as champions. Only seven clubs have ever managed to win the title, Manchester UTD (13), Chelsea (5), Manchester City (4), Arsenal (3), and Blackburn (1), Leicester (1), and Liverpool (1) and just three of these have won the title two years on the trot. These teams were, Manchester UTD, Chelsea, and Manchester City. If we discount Liverpool, who are currently trying to defend their status as champions, then only 50% of the clubs who have won the title have managed to defend it. In fact, if we look at the net points difference in teams the season after winning the Premier League, we can see that declines in performance the year after winning the title are very common.
A post recently (see here) looked at the drop off in form of League of Ireland champions in the seasons following their success. The post captured an ongoing issue in the League of Ireland where league success is often followed with a period of gradual decline, and unfortunately for Cork City, relegation. This post got me thinking about looking at the form of champions in the English Premier League the season after they won the league. Now while the Premiership doesn’t have nearly as big an issue with the decline in form of their league champions, there does still appear to be a dip in form.
It is very rare for a team to successfully defend their status as champions. Only seven clubs have ever managed to win the title, Manchester UTD (13), Chelsea (5), Manchester City (4), Arsenal (3), and Blackburn (1), Leicester (1), and Liverpool (1) and just three of these have won the title two years on the trot. These teams were, Manchester UTD, Chelsea, and Manchester City. If we discount Liverpool, who are currently trying to defend their status as champions, then only 50% of the clubs who have won the title have managed to defend it. In fact, if we look at the net points difference in teams the season after winning the Premier League, we can see that declines in performance the year after winning the title are very common.
The only year out of the past 10 that a title winning side managed to improve their points tally the following season was in 2012. That year Manchester UTD managed to accumulate 89 points instead of the 80 points they acquired the season before. What’s interesting about this is that despite the 9 point gain, they didn’t manage to defend the title that year because Manchester City beat them on goal difference. The mean points difference between a team the season they win the league and the following year over the last decade is -15.45.This news doesn’t bode well for Liverpool fans who are cheering their club on during their first ever title defence of the Premier League era. Hopefully they can manage to weather through this drop-off effect.
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