Defending a domestic title is often harder than winning it. Across Europe\u2019s top five leagues over recent decades there have been several dramatic reversals where champions tumbled the following season.<\/p>\n
Nantes won Ligue 1 in 2000\u201301 with 68 points and 12 goals from Olivier Monterrubio. The next season they managed only 43 points and finished 11th, a 25-point drop.<\/p>\n
Manchester United accumulated 89 points in 2012\u201313 as Sir Alex Ferguson secured the title. David Moyes then inherited the squad and United slipped to 64 points and seventh in 2013\u201314, a 25-point decline. Ryan Giggs took charge before the season ended.<\/p>\n
Blackburn reached 89 points in 1994\u201395 thanks to the \u201cSAS\u201d partnership of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton. Injuries to Sutton contributed to a failure to score in the league the following year, and Blackburn finished 1995\u201396 on 61 points and seventh, 28 points fewer.<\/p>\n
Lille surprised by winning Ligue 1 in 2020\u201321 with 83 points, propelled by Jonathan David and Burak Y\u0131lmaz. In 2021\u201322 they fell to 55 points and 10th while Paris Saint-Germain reclaimed the title, a 28-point gap.<\/p>\n
Montpellier triumphed in 2011\u201312 with 82 points and Olivier Giroud\u2019s 21 goals. After his move to Arsenal they declined to 52 points and ninth in 2012\u201313, a 30-point swing.<\/p>\n
Liverpool reached 99 points in 2019\u201320 but fell to 69 points and 10th in 2020\u201321, a drop of 30 points.<\/p>\n
AC Milan under Fabio Capello took Serie A with 73 points in 1995\u201396. The next season they slumped to 43 points and 11th, a 30-point fall, after his departure.<\/p>\n
Leeds United won the old Division One in 1991\u201392 with 82 points. The start of the Premier League era and departures such as Eric Cantona left them with 51 points and 11th in 1992\u201393, a 31-point reduction.<\/p>\n
Leicester famously won 2015\u201316 with 81 points but fell to 44 points and 12th in 2016\u201317, a 37-point collapse.<\/p>\n
Napoli secured Serie A in 2022\u201323 with 90 points but, after the loss of Kim Min-jae and the departure of head coach Luciano Spalletti, they endured a turbulent 2023\u201324 season with three managers, winning only five games after New Year and finishing 11th on 53 points, a 37-point decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ranking the most dramatic title defences in Europe’s top leagues and the champions’ sharp declines..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,969],"tags":[1162,1087,1307],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-coaching-change","tag-collapse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}