5 of the best teams to not win the Premier League
In pretty simple terms, the best team should always win the league, right? While it’s understandable that the best side might not win a knockout competition – the odd upset or flukey result can always happen – over the 38 games in a Premier League season, the cream should probably rise to the top.
While that tends to be the case, of course, some seasons have seen equally great teams that for whatever reason, didn’t quite manage to get over that final hurdle to win that elusive title. Perhaps they blew up late on, or simply lost one or two crucial games. Maybe the winning side were just that bit better, and in any other year, they’d have been champions. Here are five of the best sides to have never won the Premier League.
#5 Newcastle United, 1995/96
In any sort of list referring to the best sides that didn’t win the league, Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle of 1995/96 always deserve a mention. 1994/95 saw the Magpies finish sixth in the Premier League, and their fans were greatly annoyed when they sold top scorer Andy Cole to Manchester United in January.
The summer of 1995 saw Keegan spend the money the club had gained from the Cole transfer to strengthen the squad – in came French attacking midfielder David Ginola, QPR’s prolific striker Les Ferdinand, and goalkeeper Shaka Hislop. Slotting in alongside the likes of Rob Lee, Peter Beardsley and Philippe Albert, the team soon developed a wild, attacking style and were christened ‘The Entertainers’.
Newcastle surged to the top of the table and by January 1996, they’d built a 12-point lead over rivals Man United. Somehow though, the wheels started to come off – the Magpies dropped some vital points at West Ham and Man City while United started to claw the lead back, thanks mainly to the return of Eric Cantona.
In March, Newcastle were defeated by United at home, and soon after, the side lost to Liverpool 4-3 in one of the all-time classic Premier League games, living and dying by the sword due to Keegan’s gung-ho tactics. Suckered in by United manager Alex Ferguson’s mind games, Keegan began to lose his cool, and his side couldn’t sustain their run and were eventually overtaken, missing out on the top spot by four points.