Which English football champions had the longest pre-season odds? “Arsenal were 40-1 to win the Premier League at the start of the season,” writes Alex Norton. “Aside from Leicester, who are the most unlikely English champions in betting terms?”
After spending a relaxing weekend searching through the newspaper archives, we discovered preseason odds for every English champion since the mid-1960s—with one annoying exception. None came close to Leicester’s 5,000-1 miracle from the 2015–16 season. In reality, Leicester is the only team to have won the championship with odds in the double digits, let alone quadruple, during the Premier League history.
According to the oddsmakers, Manchester United in 2006–07 was the next most unlikely winner. They were 13-2 when they overcame José Mourinho’s ruthless Chelsea, who had gone three years without winning the league. Many believed Sir Alex Ferguson was done. They were utterly, wildly, profoundly mistaken because he was a league champion in five of his final seven seasons at Old Trafford.
Which English football champions had the longest pre-season odds?
Chelsea (5-1 when they won it under Antonio Conte in 2016–17), Arsenal (9–2 in both 1997–98 and 2001–02), Manchester City (9–2 in 2011–12), Blackburn (4–1 in 1994–95), and Manchester United again (4–1 in 1992–93) are other relative outsiders.
Following Chelsea’s emphatic victory at West Brom in 2017, Antonio Conte (left) joins Thibaut Courtois and Michy Batshuayi in postgame celebrations.
After Chelsea’s commanding victory over West Brom in 2017, Antonio Conte (left) joins Thibaut Courtois and Michy Batshuayi in postgame celebrations. Image by Nick Potts/PA
Leicester’s championship victory was all the more impressive because the Premier League has turned into somewhat of a closed shop. However, football was more inclusive back when it was still in Division One, when several teams had odds of more than 10-1 to win the league before the season had started. First, Leeds under Howard Wilkinson finished the 1991–92 season 12–1. Even though they had impressed by coming fourth the year prior, it was only their second season back in the top flight, and practically everyone believed it was too soon for them to really consider a title bid.
Everton, a young team led by Howard Kendall, started the season 14-1 before romping thrillingly to the title in 1984–85. The 1988–89 season of another intrepid young Arsenal team faced surrealistic long odds of 16-1 before winning their first championship in 18 years. In 1970–71, the year they completed the Double, Arsenal was given a similar chance of winning the league.
Going into the 1971–72 season, Brian Clough’s Derby were joint tenth favorites with Wolves at 25-1 odds. In 1980–81, Aston Villa, another club from the Midlands, was likewise ranked ninth overall but with significantly longer odds at 33-1.
It will be a while before Manchester City is given odds of 66-1 to win the championship, but that was the situation in August 1967. The odds seem absurd now, but at the time they made sense because City had just returned to the top division and had finished 15th the previous season. They defeated Newcastle on the last day, beating Manchester United, the defending champions, to claim the title.
When you add two European Cups, only one story can compare to Leicester’s. The newly promoted Nottingham Forest team led by Clough and Peter Taylor dominated the league in 1977–78. Although we could not locate their exact odds, we know from a modern advertisement that they were not among the top 14 favorites to win the championship that year.
