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2002-03

The FA Premier League 2002-03 season ended with Manchester United as champions for the eighth time in 11 years, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that defending champions Arsenal had led by eight points at the beginning of March. more...

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Arsenal, had led by 12 points at one stage, and were so far ahead that Irish Bookie Paddy Power paid out to all punters who had betted on Arsenal retaining their title. They surrendered their title with a 3-2 home defeat against Leeds United in the penultimate game of the season, had some consolation in the form of a 1-0 win over Southampton in the FA Cup final. The title race was blown open when Arsenal were defeated by a fantastic goal at Everton, by a young footballer named Wayne Rooney. With United defeating Arsenal 2-0 in December and drawing 2-2 at Highbury at the end of April, Sir Alex Ferguson's United reeled Arsenal in, to pick up the Premiership title on the second last game of the season.

Newcastle United further progressed by finish third in the Premiership and qualifying for the Champions League for the second season in a row. The fourth Champions League place went to Chelsea, who were later purchased for £150million by 36-year-old Russian oil industry tycoon Roman Abramovich. Qualifying for the UEFA Cup were fifth placed Liverpool, sixth placed Blackburn Rovers and FA Cup finalists Southampton. In contention for a place in Europe right up to the last game of the season were Everton, who finished seventh (their highest league finish for eight years) despite being over £30million in debt and being knocked out of the F.A Cup by Shrewsbury Town — who were eventually demoted from Division Three to the Conference. Everton's 17-year-old striker Wayne Rooney was the biggest new talent of the season, and became England's youngest ever full international.

Liverpool won the League Cup for the seventh time after beating Manchester United 2-0 at the Millennium Stadium in early March. This was fair compensation for Gerard Houllier's team, who had led the Premiership during the early part of the season but then gone 11 first team games without a win and slipped into ninth place come November.

At the other end of the Premiership, Sunderland finished bottom of the division and were relegated after four successive seasons of top flight football. Their season began badly and manager Peter Reid was sacked in early October, after an eight-season tenure at the club which had seen two promotions to the Premiership as Division One champions as well as two successive seventh place finish. F.A technical director and former Leeds United manager Howard Wilkinson was appointed as his replacement. Working under Wilkinson, as assistant manager, was 38-year-old Steve Cotterill - who had resigned as Stoke City manager after just four months in charge, having previously won three promotions in six seasons with Cheltenham Town. In early December, Sunderland chairman Bob Murray announced that the club was £25million in debt, but around the same time the team managed a 2-1 home win over Liverpool which suggested that they could avoid relegation. This was their fourth league win of the season - and their last. The nearest Sunderland came to success in 2002-03 was reaching the Fifth Round of the F.A Cup, and on the Premiership scene things went from bad to worse. Wilkinson and Cotterill were sacked in March and replaced by former Republic of Ireland national coach Mick McCarthy, who could only make plans for the future as Sunderland's final 15 Premiership games all ended in defeat and they went down with a record Premiership low of four wins, 21 goals and 19 points (also the second worst under the 3 points for a win system). Sunderland later lost their first two games of the 2003-04 Division One campaign, thus recording a second worst of all time record of 17 successive league defeats. The record of 18 successive defeats had been set by Darwen, 110 years earlier.