The earliest title Premier League title wins
The Premier League title race has been more of a canter for Liverpool in season 2024/25. With six games remaining, the Reds are just a few wins away from sealing their 20th top-flight English title.
Although they are well clear of second-place Arsenal in the fight for the title, they won’t be breaking any records this season for how quickly they have won the title. However, who has won the Premier League with the most games remaining?
Liverpool (Won the Premier League title with seven games left in season 2019/20)
The men from Merseyside already hold the record for the earliest title triumph, anyway. In season 2019/20, Jurgen Klopp’s team claimed the title with seven games remaining, in a rare instance of Liverpool beating recent perennial rivals Manchester City to the crown.
Unfortunately for Liverpool, the victory was slightly soured by the fact that they couldn’t celebrate the triumph with their fans as the campaign was halted in March due to COVID-19. The season resumed in June, but without any fans in stadiums.
The title was Liverpool’s first of the Premier League era, having failed to win the English top-flight title since season 1989/90. It was also head coach Jurgen Klopp’s third domestic league title, as he had previously guided Dortmund to the German Bundesliga title on two occasions.
Manchester City (Won the Premier League title with five games left in season 2017/18)
This was the historic campaign in which Manchester City became the first team in the history of the English top-flight to pick up a century of points. The Citizens claimed the title when city and title rivals Manchester United suffered a surprising defeat to West Brom.
City romped to the title in the end, finishing a whopping 19 points clear of United, which is a record gap between the champions and runners-up in the English top-flight.
Pep Guardiola’s team also set another record, as they were the first team ever to win 32 games in a top-flight campaign. The Citizens recorded the same win tally in the following season, but this time chalked up two fewer points in the Premier League.
The 2017/18 campaign also saw City break a goalscoring record, as they scored a Premier League record 106 goals in one season. The only team to have scored more goals in a single English top-flight campaign was Tottenham in season 1962/63.
Manchester United (Won the Premier League title with five games left in season 2000/01)
Long before City’s extraordinary period of league dominance under Pep Guardiola, Manchester United claimed the title with just five Premier League games left in the campaign.
The season was 2000/01, and Sir Alex Ferguson guided the Red Devils to yet another Premier League title. A defeat by Middlesbrough for runners-up Arsenal was enough to seal United’s third straight Premier League title.
Despite the title triumph, it was not a vintage campaign for United, as the Red Devils picked up just 80 points. Only three teams have claimed the title with fewer points in the Premier League era.
They were helped by runners-up Arsenal, who claimed just 70 points in the campaign. Only Newcastle in season 1996/97 (Kevin Keegan would love it!) picked up fewer points as Premier League runners-up, claiming just 67 points.
Despite the seemingly unextraordinary title triumph, United was actually the earliest winner of the Premier League title by date, claiming the top-flight title on 14th April 2001.
What happened before the Premier League?
We all know that football was invented in 1992 with the advent of the Premier League. However, what happened before the establishment of the current English top-flight?
Two teams won the English First Division title with just five games remaining. The first one was Manchester United in season 1907/08. Although it was the days of two points per win, the Red Devils still managed to finish nine points ahead of Aston Villa and city rivals Manchester City in second and third place, respectively.
The other team to win the First Division with five games left was Howard Kendall’s Everton in season 1984/85. The Toffees coasted to the title, eventually finishing 13 points ahead of arch-rivals Liverpool and Tottenham.
The title was the Merseysiders’ first since the days of the club’s holy trinity midfield of Howard Kendall, Colin Harvey and Alan Ball. The Toffees also went on to win their only ever European trophy in the same season, as they lifted the Cup Winners’ Cup.