The highs of a Premier League title win are among the greatest in the game, and very few clubs and fanbases will get to experience that feeling in their lifetime. However, it is tough to follow that up, and often clubs face the disappointment of missing out the following season.

Manchester City set English football history by winning their fourth straight top flight title in 2023-24, becoming the first team in the history of the game in the country to do so. Pep Guardiola’s side has taught every club a lesson in how to defend their crown with their domination of the game on English shores.

Other clubs haven’t found defending their titles so easy though, and some have gone backwards hugely in the following season. In fact, even in this 2025/2026 Premier League season, Arne Slot’s Liverpool have endured a difficult opening few months to the season after cantering to the title in the campaign before. So, with that in mind, here are the 10 worst title defences in Premier League history.

Ranking factors:

• League Finish – how far down the table did the club fall in the season after being crowned champions
• Points Lost – how many points did the club lose from their title-winning season
• Club Turmoil – other factors that may have affected the club’s league finish, and had a lasting impact on the team’s fortunes.

10

Arsenal

2004/05

After a season that saw them become the ‘Invincibles’, Arsenal’s title defence in the 2004/2005 campaign left a lot to be desired. Despite boasting a number of the top players that saw them remain unbeaten for a full season, the Gunners started to stumble after their streak was ended by Manchester United in the league.

Arsene Wenger’s side would then win just one of their next five games in the competition, and even that was the quite crazy 5-4 victory away at Tottenham. In the end, Arsenal would lose the league by 12 points as new Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho stamped his mark on English football.

9

Manchester United

2001/02

While Manchester United would actually only finish three points behind their title-winning tally of the previous year, Sir Alex Ferguson’s side would actually end up finishing in third during the 2001/2002 season. Their difficult travails weren’t just confined to the Premier League either, going out of the League Cup to rivals Arsenal, being knocked out at the FA Cup fourth round, and then losing to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League semi-finals.

United’s league season took a particularly damaging setback when they lost five games in seven, including the 1-0 defeat to Arsenal at home at Old Trafford in which the Gunners secured the league title in their own ground.

8

Manchester United

2003/04

Perhaps unfortunate to have come up against Arsenal’s Invincibles, Manchester United had a relative struggle in the 2003-04 season as they slipped to 3rd place after having won the Premier League the year before. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side did actually lead the title briefly in December and early January, but a shock defeat to Wolves saw them slip behind the Gunners in the title race, and they never recovered, losing four further games in the league to also fall behind Chelsea in the table by the end of the season.

The Red Devils’ downturn in form was in part due to the absence of Rio Ferdinand, who missed eight months after missing a drugs test, although the club did pick up the FA Cup trophy, so they did pick up some silverware, but on the league front, 3rd place was a disappointing finish for Ferguson and his side.

7

Manchester City

2024/25

The most recent example to feature on this list – at least perhaps until the end of this current 2025/2026 campaign when Liverpool might feature – Manchester City endured a nightmare season riddled by poor form and injuries. Indeed, much of their season boiled down to the ACL injury suffered by Ballon d’Or winner Rodri in the early weeks of the campaign, and City never really recovered from it.

In fact, in a two-month spell from October to December, Pep Guardiola’s side played 13 matches across all competitions, but would only win just one. While City ended up finishing third after recovering somewhat in the back-end of the campaign, it was a season that was far short of the such high standards Guardiola and his men had built for themselves over the years.

6

Liverpool

2020/21

Plagued by defensive injuries throughout the 2020-21 season, which made defending their maiden Premier League title near impossible, Liverpool finishing 3rd in their only Premier League season as defending champions was impressive considering the time they were without important players such as Virgil van Dijk and Alisson. Having racked up an astonishing 99 points in 2019-20, following that achievement was going to be difficult under any circumstances, but Jürgen Klopp’s men were dealt a difficult hand by the absences of key individuals.

Liverpool lost an astonishing 30 points from their title-winning season as they failed to defend their crown, with Manchester City regaining their title comfortably ahead of Manchester United in 2nd. The 2020-21 season featured a shock 7-2 demolition at the hands of Aston Villa and was also the season the Reds lost their remarkable unbeaten record at Anfield, with their 68-game unbeaten spell, the second-longest in English top division history, ending with a shock 1-0 loss to Burnley. Incredibly, the club then lost six straight games at Anfield, including a heavy 4-1 defeat to City and a 2-0 loss in the Merseyside derby. With all that considered, the club did well to finish 3rd.

5

Chelsea

2017/18

In a difficult season off the pitch for the club, Chelsea slipped from runaway title winners under Antonio Conte in 2016-17 to fifth place in the following campaign, missing out on Champions League football entirely as a result. The campaign started in difficult circumstances as a well-publicised fallout between the Italian manager and striker Diego Costa saw the Spaniard banished from the club, eventually joining Atlético Madrid in January 2018. Indeed, this early chaos behind the scenes was reflected on the pitch, as the club lost its first game of the season in a shock 3-2 home defeat by Burnley, marking only the second time the reigning champions had lost their opening fixture of the following season.

The club’s season truly unraveled in late January-early February, as Chelsea were heavily beaten 3-0 Bournemouth and 4-1 by Watford in consecutive league games, as well as a heavy final day loss to Newcastle that saw Conte relieved of his duties at the end of the campaign. The Stamford Bridge club lost 23 points from its title winning season, and clearly the off-field issues had an impact on the club’s league performances.

4

Manchester United

2013/14

Taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson at the Old Trafford hot seat was always going to be a challenge for David Moyes, but the 2013-14 season was an absolute disaster for both manager and club, as the Red Devils fell from comfortable title winners in 2012-13 to their worst-ever Premier League finish at the time, ending up 7th in the league and missing out on continental football altogether.

Moyes didn’t see out the season, being sacked in April just ten months into a four-year contract at the club, with United having been knocked out of the FA Cup in Round 3 by Swansea, and being beaten by Sunderland in the League Cup semi-finals, as well as their difficult league form, which had seen heavy derby defeats to Liverpool and Manchester City, as well as shock losses to Stoke, Newcastle and West Brom. Ryan Giggs was brought in as player-manager but couldn’t help the club avoid their worst ever Premier League finish, and one of the worst title defences in the league’s history. United haven’t won the league since, and have only finished second on a handful of occasions, in an era far away from the continued success of Fergie’s dominant side.

3

Blackburn Rovers

1995-96

Fresh off the back of their maiden Premier League title in 1994-95, Blackburn Rovers struggled immensely under the weight of being champions, in an extremely difficult campaign at Ewood Park where relegation was a real possibility at one stage. With Kenny Dalglish resigning as manager following the club’s title triumph, Rovers struggled under the leadership of replacement Ray Harford, and sat 17th in the league after six games following defeats to Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton, Manchester United and Liverpool.

A 5-0 loss to Coventry only compounded the club’s problems, although return to form in the second half of the campaign saw Blackburn finish 7th, clawing back some respectability as defending champions. Alan Shearer struck 31 goals in the league, but with the club missing out on European football he joined Newcastle at the end of the season, putting the stamp on a miserable season for the Lancashire club.

2

Chelsea

2015/16

An absolute disaster of a season at Stamford Bridge saw José Mourinho’s dominant Chelsea side of 2014-15 barely finish in the top half of the Premier League the following season. The season started badly, with a high-profile row between Mourinho and physio Eva Carneiro in the season-opening home draw with Swansea, that saw Carneiro eventually win a £5m settlement and leave the club, in an event that set the tone for the remainder of the Blues’ campaign. Indeed, the defending champions entered 2016 in 14th in the league, in an astonishing falloff from the previous campaign.

Mourinho was sacked by the club in December after a loss to eventual title winners Leicester, after nine losses in 16 league games, and was replaced by Guus Hiddink, who restored the club to the top half, but 10th was a calamitous finish for a club that had won the league by eight points in the previous season. Chelsea’s tally of 50 points meant that they had lost a woeful 37 points, making it one of the worst title defences of all time. Incredibly, the club would bounce back from this to win the title again in 2016-17.

1

Leicester City

2016/17

On the back of their fairytale title win in 2015-16, Leicester could not replicate their miraculous form in the 2016-17 season, instead falling to the worst season for a champion the Premier League has ever seen. The club had a solid Champions League run, making it to the quarter finals having beaten Sevilla in the Round of 16, before bowing out after a narrow defeat to Atletico Madrid, but they found it difficult to perform on the domestic stage, spending the majority of the season in the bottom reaches of the table.

The campaign started badly, with a 2-1 defeat to Hull on the opening day making the Foxes the first defending champion to lose their first game of the following season, and the club then won just five of its opening nineteen league games. With the club sitting 17th in the league in mid-February after five straight league defeats, Claudio Ranieri was sacked and replaced with Craig Shakespeare, who oversaw five straight wins to bring Leicester out of a relegation dogfight, eventually finishing 12th in the league, after a rollercoaster season at the King Power that saw the club suffer 18 league defeats.