Tom Ede: A Brief History of Table Toppers

IF you look at the Premier League table, you’ll see Manchester City top. Quite a common sight in the recent years. However, for one glorious night in certain parts of east London (and most of Essex) last weekend, West Ham United sat at the summit.

Now West Ham being top is actually nothing new – they also topped the table for six days in August 2021. But they took over from Brighton following a 3-1 win at the Amex Stadium, with the Seagulls’ spell the first time they’ve ever been top of the Premier League – and indeed, top-flight – table. Brighton themselves took over from Newcastle, which means there’s already been four teams to finish a day top of the league this season, already one more than the whole of last season (Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham).

So, with the fact that there’s nothing better to do, here’s the guide you never knew you needed, packed full of quirky stats and facts about table-topping Premier League clubs.

MOST DAYS TOP WITHOUT WINNING THE TITLE

This unwanted record goes to Arsenal, who topped the table for 248 days last season but ultimately fell short and finished second to Manchester City. Of course this figure is slightly skewed due to the World Cup in the middle of the season, but it’s also the most days Arsenal have ever spent top of the table – more so even than their ‘invincible’ 2003-04 campaign. In Premier League history there have been five occasions of a team topping the table for at least 150 days but not winning the league, with the Gunners responsible for three of those.

FEWEST DAYS TOP WHILE WINNING THE TITLE

On the flip side, there have been five occasions of a title winning team topping the table for fewer than 50 days. Topping this list is Manchester City, who were top for just 15 days in 2013-14 before lifting the trophy in their first season under Manuel Pellegrini. And though due to a word limit we’re sticking with the Premier League for this exercise, special mention must go to Burnley in 1959-60, who topped the table for one day in August, and didn’t return to the summit until the final day of the season to pip Wolves to the crown.

In the interests of balance (and as I’m sure you’re all dying to know), the record for most days top in a title winning season is Liverpool’s 346 in 2019-20, or if you prefer your seasons uninterrupted by Covid, it’s Chelsea’s 274 in 2014-15. In Liverpool’s case, they went top for the final time on 17th August 2019 and stayed there until the end of the season, a record 345 consecutive days top of the pile.

MOST AND FEWEST DIFFERENT TEAMS TO TOP THE TABLE

As previously mentioned, 2023-24 has already seen more teams finish a day top of the table than the whole of last season. But the question on everyone’s lips has to be what’s the MOST different teams to be top in a single campaign? Well we only have to go back to 2020-21 for the answer, when nine different teams did so – Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur. Eventual champions Man City spent more of those than any other side (118), despite not going top for the first time until January 26th. Funnily enough, the season before this saw the fewest number of teams finish a day top, with just Liverpool and Man City reaching the heights that term.

OVERALL RECORDS FOR FINISHING TOP

Overall, 31 of the 51 teams to have ever played in the Premier League have finished a day top. Unsurprisingly, Manchester United lead the way with 2,362, and there have been six teams to top the table for a single day – Brentford (13th August 2021), Huddersfield Town (12th August 2017), Hull City (13th August 2016), Ipswich Town (17th August 1993), Nottingham Forest (30th August 1994) and Wigan Athletic (18th August 2007).

Now the eagle-eyed among you may notice that four of the five teams in the list above have featured in every Premier League season. The two remaining ever-present teams (Tottenham and Everton) have spent a combined 110 days top of the league (Spurs 72, Everton 38), which is fewer than Norwich City with 129 (and we’ll come back to them later).

Among managers, Alex Ferguson has spent over 1000 more days top of the pile than anyone else. Each of the top 5 (detailed below) have won the Premier League, with Kevin Keegan the winner of the ‘most days top without ever winning the PL title’ award (339 days). John Gregory is the only other English manager to top the table for more than 100 days, with his 126 10 more than title winning Manuel Pellegrini.

West Ham’s David Moyes has been top this season, and is one of just three managers to top the Premier League table with three different sides (also Everton and Manchester United). The others are George Graham (Arsenal, Leeds United and Spurs) and José Mourinho (Chelsea, Man Utd and Spurs).

SOME OTHER LINES YOU MAY OR MAY NOT FIND INTERESTING

We mentioned Norwich topping the table for 129 days earlier. These all came in the inaugural Premier League campaign of 1992-93 (between August and April), when it looked for a brief moment that they may pull off a miracle. As it transpired, they became the only team to finish in the top three of the Premier League with a negative goal difference, while during their run at the top they suffered the heaviest ever Premier League defeat for a team starting the day in 1st place, going down 7-1 at Blackburn Rovers in October.

There are three teams who have finished a day top of the Premier League table and been relegated at the end of the campaign, with those unlucky three being Charlton Athletic in 1998-99, Bolton Wanderers in 2011-12 and Hull City in 2016-17. Charlton and Bolton were top for a full week in their cases, while Hull stood atop for just a single day.

There have been just three occasions of a team topping the table after the first day of the season and going on to win the league – Manchester United in 1996-97, Leicester City in 2015-16 and Liverpool in 2019-20.