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Not for nothing is the Premier League known as the most competitive football league in the world. Ever since its inception in 1992, the Premier League has been the home of high-octane football, superstar managers and players, and agony and ecstasy. It is the only league in Europe that has a highly-competitive setup of top clubs and more than just the usual 2-3 contenders for the title.
Over the years, the Premier League has witnessed great eras involving great clubs. Manchester United, stewarded by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson, remained the big boys with the most success in the 90s and into the 2000s. Arsenal, and then Chelsea, challenged and successfully wrenched off the Red Devils' crown on multiple occasions before the latter managed an upswing.
The current era of the Premier League, though, is well and truly dominated by two titans when it comes to title contenders: Manchester City and Liverpool. Both play an attractive brand of attacking football and take no prisoners. But what if we try to rank the best clubs of the Premier League era according to their performances in particular seasons? Where will the great Manchester City and Liverpool teams of the current generation stack up? Let's find out.
Top five Premier League teams of all time:
#1 Manchester City 2017-18 (Record-breaking aesthetes)
How can one not rank this team at the top of this list? The first Premier League team to reach the Holy Grail of a 100-point season, Manchester City, under Pep Guardiola, broke numerous other records while playing a beautiful brand of breathtaking passing football. While Kevin De Bruyne, Leroy Sane and Bernardo Silva and co. pulled the strings in midfield, Sergio Aguero, up front, was at his lethal best, netting 21 times during a stellar run.
City scored the most goals (106), recorded the most wins (32) and the most away wins (16) while setting 12 records which also included reaching the 100-point mark. Yet they dropped two games, unlike another famous entry on this list, which showed that City played to win, attacking at every go during a relentless, stylish, devastating season.
Will Manchester City's 2017-18 season ever be surpassed or even replicated?
#2 Arsenal 2003-04 (Invincibles)
For many, this team should be on top. After all, 'The Invinicibles' are the only team to have gone through an entire Premier League season without losing a single match.
Winning 26 games and drawing the other 12, Arsene Wenger's superb side were extremely potent going forward, with Dennis Bergkamp playing in the hole and Thierry Henry netting 30 goals. Players like Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg also had their best time of their lives on a football pitch.
They were solid defensively as well, with the Gunners only conceding 26 goals in a defence that had Patrick Viera acting as a shield and Kolo Toure playing like the Rock of Gibraltar at the back.
The Invincibles, however, rank behind Pep Guardiola's Manchester City in this Premier League countdown. That is because, well, they were more pragmatic having to stave off the challenge of high-spending Chelsea while only making minimum additions to the squad (Only goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was brought in during the summer). Nevertheless, the season was a testament to Wenger's amazing strategic and management skills.
#3 Liverpool 2019-20 (The dream merchants)
One must remember that this is not a team built in one season. The current Liverpool side was crafted through the painstaking toil of their German manager Jurgen Klopp over a few years.
Klopp built the current Premier League winners in his image, playing a high-pressing game that relied for creativity on the brilliant overlapping fullbacks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson and the attacking triumvirate of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.
The team had mounted a serious challenge to win the crown last season (2018/19) as well but just fell short of winning it despite losing one game. It was also the season when they won the UEFA Champions League.
However, this year, Klopp's men were not to be denied. Despite both failing to become another Invincible or even reaching 100 points (both targets that seemed achievable at first), the Reds, led by Henderson are one the greatest football teams to play in the Premier League and are one of the best football teams in the planet right now. Liverpool also won 32 games and fell just one short of a century.
If not for anything else, they will forever be remembered for finally fulfilling the dream of winning the Premier League.
#4 Chelsea 2004-05 (Arrival of new giants)
Chelsea won a league title after fifty years during Jose Mourinho's first season in charge. This line exemplifies how long the London club had to wait to win a Premier League title and the impact Jose Mourinho had at Chelsea.
Of course, before the big-spending Russian, Roman Abramovich, took over the club, they were a different entity, their past wins well and truly behind them. It is because of this reason that this Mourinho-moulded team is one of the greatest of the Premier League era.
He forged a new entity for Chelsea and the team has never looked back since. Chelsea broke numerous records during this run, including most away wins (since broken by City), most clean sheets and fewest goals conceded.
This was the high-point of the Mourinho age in football. A solid-defensive team that relied for goals on the brilliance of Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and Arjen Robben. In defence a masterful season-long performance from captain John Terry and William Gallas ensured the Blues toppled the Invincibles to snatch the title.
#5 Manchester United 2008-09 (Consistent brilliance)
This list will not be complete without one team from the club that is by far the most successful in the Premier League era. Manchester United notched up their 11th Premier League title that year and also won the League Cup in another season when Sir Alex Ferguson's wards staved off tough competition to retain their league crown.
United lost just four games to reach a commendable 90 points and this was the when they were at their fluent best in the Premier League with Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, in-coming Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez all in the mix and performing well. The defense had two of the best in the business at the heart in Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic keeping things tight and Edwin van der Sar in goal being in his best form.
Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Park Ji-sung all showed remarkable cohesion at the centre of the park and this was a complete team in more ways than one.
As said before, great teams are not a one-season project and this United team, which had won the Champions League as well as the Premier league the previous season, also reached the final this year while doing well in the FA Cup and winning the Club World Club. This was possibly the last world-beating team that came out of the red half of Manchester.
Special mention
Leicester City, who came out of nowhere in the 2015-16 season under the tutelage of Claudio Ranieri to script the greatest Premier League fairy tale of all time, deserve a mention. They might find it tough competing against the classic Premier League teams mentioned above but will forever stand out for their grit and determination and for having proved anything is possible.
