\n<\/p>\n
The venerated, celebrated and often downright hated Premier League \u2018Big Six\u2019 has been called into debate numerous times since its unofficial inception. Shouldn\u2019t a team like Everton, Newcastle or Aston Villa be in there? Do they all deserve their spot? In these six seasons, the debate had never been fiercer.<\/strong><\/p>\n Today, we\u2019ll be looking at each of the big six\u2019s worst campaigns during the Premier League era. In case you needed a reminder, the clubs in the big six are Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur and this is not referring to their League position of course.<\/p>\n In the pre-Arsene Wenger era, Arsenal were practically unrecognisable compared with the club that they are today. George Graham had brought them success in years prior, but by the time 1994 came around, he had largely run out of steam at Highbury.<\/p>\n While results declined, Graham became embroiled in controversy off the pitch. He was found to have accepted a bribe to the tune of \u00a3425,000 (\u00a3956,000 in today\u2019s money) from football agent Rune Hauge amid the acquistion of John Jensen and Pal Lydersen. For this indiscretion, he was sacked and given a one year ban by the FA.<\/p>\n Arsenal\u2019s exploits on the field noticeably suffered as a result. They finished 12th in the league table, were knocked out of the FA Cup in the third round by Millwall and were beaten in the finals of both the UEFA Cup Winners\u2019 Cup and the European Super Cup.<\/p>\n Chelsea have had technically lesser seasons than this, but they all came before the arrival of Roman Abramovich (and later, Todd Boehly) \u2013 given the resources at their disposal in 2022\/23, there can be no excuses for a campaign as pitiful as this one.<\/p>\n Featuring no less than three managers (four if you count Bruno Saltor), Chelsea\u2019s season took a swift nosedive following the sacking of Thomas Tuchel after the first six league games of the campaign. <\/p>\n In particular, Graham Potter struggled immensely. He oversaw 11 Premier League losses in under eight months \u2013 club legend Frank Lampard performed even worse, winning just one of their final 12 league games of the season.<\/p>\n Graeme Souness, as a player, is one of the most beloved legends in Liverpool\u2019s rich history. As a manager, however, his legendary status is up for debate. Despite winning an FA Cup in 1992, he led the Reds into a dead end in 1993\/94. <\/p>\n Their previous season had been a struggle \u2013 many of their former stars were aging and their reinforcements did little to offset their dwindling contributions. Despite a solid start to the season, Liverpool went on a four-game losing in September during which they failed to score a single league goal.<\/p>\n After they were dumped out of the FA Cup in the third round by Bristol City, Souness resigned \u2013 his replacement, Roy Evans, was unable to pick up the pieces before the end of the season. As a result, the Reds won just two of their last nine games, finishing eighth in the league table \u2013 they were beneath Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbledon after all was said and done. <\/p>\n Out of all the big six seasons in our list, none of them have even remotely as miserable as Manchester City\u2019s cataclysmic 1997\/98 season. Having been relegated to the Championship in 1996, City fans were hopeful of a return to the top flight. They wouldn\u2019t be in the Championship anymore by 1998\/99 \u2013 but they\u2019d gone in the wrong direction. <\/p>\n City won two of their first 12 Championship games, which included draws against Tranmere Rovers and Bury. Injuries to Uwe Rosler and Lee Bradbury did little to help matters \u2013 despite their gigantic playing squad, City were unable to put a run of results together as they remained towards the bottom end of the table. <\/p>\n Notably, they often struggled against their relegation rivals. They could only take a point off Reading, who finished 24th \u2013 meanwhile, Stoke City, who were also relegated, beat them at Maine Road towards the start of the season. They would beat the Potters in the final day of the campaign, but by then, it was already too late. Who would\u2019ve guessed they\u2019d win the Premier League title just 14 years later? <\/p>\n We all know the Manchester United story in the Premier League era. Once the most dominant team in the division under Alex Ferguson, the Red Devils have overseen a period of decline since his departure in 2013. However, none of the post-Fergie seasons were quite as miserable as 2024\/25.<\/p>\n After Erik ten Hag won the FA Cup in 2024, their fortunes looked to have change, but they were quickly brought back down to Earth. They won their first game of the season, but then suffered back-to-back losses, including a 3-0 home defeat against bitter rivals Liverpool.<\/p>\n Ten Hag was sacked in October, only to be replaced by Ruben Amorim. Amorim\u2019s time in charge of United was widely panned \u2013 he led them to finish 15th in the league table and would also lose the Europa League final to fellow strugglers Tottenham. <\/p>\n We know this season isn\u2019t over yet, but one would be hard-pressed to find a Tottenham campaign as poor as this. They were very, very poor last season, but they at least had a Europa League trophy to show for it \u2013 this season, they may very well be relegated. <\/p>\n Former Brentford boss Thomas Frank proved to be a poor appointment, eventually getting sacked in February after an eight-game winless run. His successor, Igor Tudor, made things worse still \u2013 by the time he was replaced by Roberto De Zerbi, Spurs were firmly in a relegation battle.<\/p>\n At the time of writing, Spurs are still in the relegation zone. It remains to be seen if they\u2019ll climb out the bottom three \u2013 but whatever transpires, this has been Spurs\u2019 worst season in decades. <\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The venerated, celebrated and often downright hated Premier League \u2018Big Six\u2019 has been called into…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Arsenal \u2013 1994\/95<\/h2>\n
Chelsea \u2013 2022\/23<\/h2>\n
Liverpool \u2013 1993\/94<\/h2>\n
Manchester City \u2013 1997\/98<\/h2>\n
Manchester United \u2013 2024\/25<\/h2>\n
Tottenham Hotspur \u2013 2025\/26<\/h2>\n