Bad champions? Man City & the five worst Premier League title ...

Manchester City are on course for one of the worst title defences in the history of the Premier League following their unbelievable mid-season slump.

We’ve seen some spectacular collapses from reigning Premier League champions before but we’ve never quite seen anything like this in terms of form. In all competitions, City have lost nine of their last 11 matches and no side in the Premier League has picked up fewer points since the start of November.

Of course, Pep Guardiola’s side are still sixth in the table. It’s only Christmas and they have time to recover and up with a respectable placing in the final table, but any hopes of making it five titles in a row are surely long gone.

Even if Man City won all their remaining matches from here, they’d only end up on 90 points – one fewer than last season. They’ve now lost six of their last eight Premier League outings. That’s twice as many defeats as they registered in the entirety of last season.

But where might Man City’s 2024-25 rank among the worst Premier League title defences in history? That remains to be seen, but on their current form they’re on course to register 60 points – 31 fewer than last season.

Here are the five current worst title defences in Premier League history.

5. Manchester United – 2013-14

2012-13 Points Tally: 892013-14 Points Tally: 64

Oh, Moysey.

Sir Alex Ferguson got the perfect retirement present when Robin Van Persie fired them to an emphatic title triumph in 2012-13.

But that outrageous campaign from Manchester United’s flying Dutchman masked some deficiencies in an ageing squad that proved one last hurrah. Add a new coach into the mix and one unable to inspire the same results and you have a recipe for disaster.

Moyes unsurprisingly didn’t make it until the end of the season and United finished seventh. That was their worst placing of the Premier League era in terms of points and placing at the time, but they’ve since plumbed worse depths in 2021-22 (58 points) and 2023-24 (eighth place).

4. Blackburn Rovers – 1995-96

1994-95 Points Tally: 891995-96 Points Tally: 61

Like Manchester United in 2013-14, Blackburn suffered following the departure of the architect of their success. Kenny Dalglish resigned after breaking up Manchester United’s mid-90s period of dominance and successor Ray Harford was unable to deliver anything like the same level of success.

The tone for their limp title defence was set by defeat to Everton in the Charity Shield and four defeats from the first six matches of the league campaign.

Talisman Alan Shearer still scored a respectable 31 Premier League goals (37 in all competitions) but the team was otherwise dysfunctional, exited the Champions League at the group stage and limped on to an underwhelming seventh-place finish.

3. Leeds United – 1992-93

1991-92 Points Tally: 821992-93 Points Tally: 51

Howard Wilkinson was the last English manager to win the English league title – the last before the shiny Premier League rebrand in 1992.

Eric Cantona signposted his ascent to Premier League legend status with a hat-trick against Liverpool in the Charity Shield, but Wilkinson struggled to find a place for him and he went on to fulfil that destiny at Old Trafford.

Goalkeeper John Lukic struggling with the implementation of the backpass rule was among the reasons for Leeds’ dramatic downturn, but worst of all was their hopeless away form – they didn’t register a single victory on the road.

They eventually finished 17th and were just two points away from becoming only the second reigning champions in English football history to suffer relegation. Surprisingly enough, though, two sides since then have notched a worse record in terms of the points gap…

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2. Chelsea – 2015-16

2014-15 Points Tally: 872015-16 Points Tally: 50

Here’s what Antonio Conte might refer to as a “Mourinho season” and what’s probably the closest reference point to what’s happening with Guardiola’s City right now.

Even then, Mourinho’s ailing Blues only notched five defeats from eight in their worst run of the season. Although they didn’t have points accrued from a strong start to the season to fall back on, and Mourinho was given his marching orders following a December defeat to Leicester City that left Chelsea unthinkably 16th, one point above the relegation zone.

Interim successor Guus Hiddink guided Chelsea to 10th place in the end, which was about as much as they could have hoped for, but it remains the joint-worst points drop-off from a reigning champion in the Premier League era.

1. Leicester City – 2016-17

2015-16 Points Tally: 812016-17 Points Tally: 44

This is what you might call regression to the mean following the Foxes’ unthinkable fairytale in 2015-16.

Leicester actually rallied for a memorable Champions League run to the quarter-finals, but their relegation form in the Premier League saw Claudio Ranieri sacked in February. The loss of N’Golo Kante – who immediately helped Chelsea get back on top under Conte – proved particularly disastrous.

Craig Shakespeare ended up guiding Leicester to 12th in the table in the end. Their 37-point drop-off equalled Chelsea’s the year before, but their final tally of 44 points is the worst by a reigning champion in the Premier League era.