25 most significant moments in Premier League history including Gerrard, Keegan, Aguerooooooo and more
These are the moments that meant so much to the very history of the Premier League; that made those 25 years what they were
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Over the course of 25 years and over 865,800 minutes of football, the Premier League has seen so many memorable matches and so many unforgettable goals, but they will be recorded elsewhere.
What this is those single minutes that so infused those goals and games, that were brief enough a moment to be simultaneously self-contained and sensational but also had a significance and importance that reflected and influenced something so much bigger than themselves; that meant so much to the very history of the Premier League; that made those 25 years what they were.
Here they are 25-1...
25. Sir Alex Ferguson anoints David Moyes, 2013-14
If Ferguson’s retirement was stunning news but obviously inevitable, Moyes’ appointment was both intensely perplexing and surprising. He was given the benefit of the doubt by virtue of who chose him, but it so quickly became apparent he was out of depth, and thereby sent the entire dynamic of the Premier League out of kilter.
After two decades where you could be pretty much guaranteed that Manchester United would be the baseline of competitiveness for winning the title; the threshold. That all evaporated with Moyes, and created the most unpredictable and open period in the English top flight since before the Premier League began. It could have been so different had United gone a different way.
24. Ashley Young reduces Arsenal to ashes, 2011-12
As the Manchester United winger curled in a stunning 90th-minute strike to make this an even more stunning result at 8-2, it also reduced Arsene Wenger to the worst moment of his Arsenal career. The deeper significance, though, was how it represented the nadir of the elongated worst period of his Arsenal career given that so many of the problems he had been accused of combined for one crushing defeat.
It was the first time it really looked like the great might actually be past his best, and has never really gone away.
23. Edin Dzeko makes it six, 2011-12
After so many years of Manchester United superiority, and so many recent games when Sir Alex Ferguson’s side had punished City with late goals, it was as if Roberto Mancini’s side were channeling all the frustration of that into one fantastical crescendo for Edin Dzeko to make it a sensational 6-1. The Italian’s side scored three emphatic late goals of their own to inflict Sir Alex Ferguson’s worst defeat as United boss and his club’s worst at home since 1930. It also changed the course of history, as City showed there was more substance to them than money, going on to become champions and ensuring that the shockwaves of this had an even greater effect than similar big United defeats like the 5-0 to Newcastle United. Dzeko, and City, took it up a level.
22. Thierry Henry turns it on against Liverpool, to keep Arsenal on track, 2003-04
Quite simply, Arsenal produced the Premier League’s sole unbeaten season, because of one unparalleled player at that point. Henry rose up when most required. With Arsenal having just been knocked out of the FA Cup and Champions League, Liverpool threatened to derail their league season by going 2-1 up at Highbury. Henry had other ideas, and another gear, as he completed a hat-trick to complete the turnaround.
21. Wayne Rooney’s first goal, 2002-03
Rooney’s very longevity has almost made him somewhat taken-for-granted, but there’s still no lessening the impact of when he first took his chance at Everton as a mere teenager. For a player so young to do something that brilliant - and that commanding - was so rare and so exhilaratingly exciting. The real key was that the bombastic nature of his brilliant winner against champions Arsenal so fully reflected the force of nature he was at that point, and that would power one of the most glittering Premier League careers.
20. Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira see each other out there… and go head to head, 1999-2000
You can really take your pick from 1998-99, 2004-05 and so many other flashpoints between Keane and Vieira, but Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Arsenal at Highbury was probably the volcanic peak, not least because one of them scored twice to win the game and they so dictated it by going head to head as well as the fact this was when the rivalry - between the two clubs and two players - was at its most ferocious. The Premier League still hasn’t seen anything like it, and these two best defined the aggression and energy that has so characterised the competition.
19. Everton stay up against Wimbledon, 1993-94
The first of the Premier League’s many great escapes from relegation, but one that had more historical meaning than all others, given that Everton were looking to preserve 40 years of top-flight status. They just about kept it, thanks to a comeback from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at home to Wimbledon, as Goodison Park struggled to keep the roof on when Graham Stuart beat the hapless Hans Segers to hit his second of the game and one of the biggest goals in the grand old ground’s history.
18. Roy Keane leaves Manchester United, 2005-06
For 12 years and seven titles, Keane had effectively been Sir Alex Ferguson’s representative on the pitch, embodying everything that drove United and the manager… until he then came to shockingly embody one of Ferguson’s key rules: everyone is ultimately dispensable. He ruthlessly ended his captain’s contract.
The twist was that it seemed like Ferguson himself should have been dispensed with at that point, given that what led to this was Keane hammering the squad his boss had assembled in what was the manager’s worst season at United since before the Premier League. It actually ended up leading to his best team.
The dismissal of Keane, brilliant as he’d been, allowed Ferguson to reshape his squad and immediately win three titles in a row as well as a Champions League. It was all so impossible to believe at the time, though, right down to the decision.
17. David Beckham launches the ball from his own half, and launches his career, 1996-97
There’s an argument that the Premier League has seen better goals, and even an argument about Beckham’s exact status as one of the greats, but there can be no argument about the sheer spectacle of it or what it did for his career and the whole idea of a “star”.
In beating Wimbledon’s Neil Sullivan from his own half on the opening day of the 1996-97 season, Beckham ensured he became more famous than any footballer had ever been, and helped create and foster the bombast of the growing Premier League. He was truly a player of his time, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that such moments came from so much time training.
16. Southampton send Jose Mourinho to a new low, and new levels desperation, 2015-16
It was still to get so much worse for Mourinho and defending champions Chelsea in the torrid 2015-16 but the October 3-1 defeat to Southampton finally brought the full realisation that this wasn’t just a blip, that this wasn’t just a freak situation, but that something was badly wrong and the Portuguese really could be on the brink of the sack.
That was only confirmed when he then went on TV and embarked on an eight-minute monologue, insisting he was the only man of the job. It represented a desperation that was so far removed from the utter assurance he’d radiated throughout his career. Then again, these were results that had never been before and an unprecedented collapse. Everything was up in the air for one of the surest things in Premier League history.
15. Tony Adams completes Arsene Wenger’s revolution, 1997-98
It was the game that sealed Wenger’s first title, and the goal that so fully illustrated the reasons for that title - the transformation of Arsenal and one of their totems in Adams. Previously seen as the most old-fashioned of defenders and someone who had also had his career derailed by alcohol addiction, he exemplified how much the Arsenal squad had bought into Wenger’s new ways by surging forward at 3-0 against Everton to then calmly and supremely fire the ball in for the fourth.
That it was Steve Bould who played the ball only emphasised the change, as Arsenal were on full charge.
14. George Graham sacked for taking bungs, 1994-95
The subsequent revolution at Arsenal has diminished the public memory of this moment, but it directly led to that revolution and was an incident of appropriate heft to cause such a landmark upheaval. It’s actually intriguing to think what would the reaction would be if a similar event happened today: a two-time title winning manager sacked from one of the biggest clubs in the country, for accepting an illegal payment for transfers.
That was precisely what happened to the then-legendary Graham, just months after winning the Cup Winners Cup and just three and a bit years after his second league, as it was discovered he had accepted £425,000 - almost 150% his salary - from agent Rune Hauge for the transfers of John Jensen and Pal Lydersen.
13. Luis Suarez bites Branislav Ivanovic, 2012-13
The Premier League has seen bad fouls, bad fights and some downright bad moments but, even with aggression, Suarez took it to new levels. It had never seen a bite, even if the Uruguayan’s career has bizarrely seen more than one.
12. Chelsea beat Liverpool to the Champions League, and to change their future, 2002-03
The race for the top four has become even bigger since then, but none will ever match the stakes of this final-day clash between Liverpool and Chelsea, even if it wasn’t quite known at the time. It is still one of those great what-if moments. Jesper Gronkjaer scored to make it 2-1 and, with financially troubled Chelsea in the Champions League, Roman Abramovich decided to buy the club and change the path of the entire Premier League.
11. Hansen says you can’t win anything with kids, 1995-96
Television deals and all the media noise have been so key to the ostentatious growth of the Premier League, so it is probably appropriate that the competition has in return offered one of those great moments of classic punditry, and one of those that arguably even played its part in the title win. On the opening day of the 1995-96 season, after Sir Alex Ferguson had decided to sell Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelsksis but was then forced to put out a diminished team away to Aston Villa to badly lose 3-1, Alan Hansen proclaimed on Match of the Day that “you can’t win anything with kids”. He just didn’t know the calibre of the kids, as United were to so emphatically prove him wrong.
10. Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra, 2011-12
Perhaps the ugliest controversy in Premier League history, because of the reported details of the incident, the reaction to it, and how deeply rancorous the already heated United-Liverpool rivalry got. The latter is ultimately why it trumps John Terry’s charge from the match against QPR in the same season, in what was a similarly unsavoury incident. Suarez was found guilty by an FA commission of using “insulting words with a reference to Mr Evra’s colour”, and the Premier League found itself in a period of general unpleasantness arguably not seen otherwise. It even tipped into farce with Liverpool’s decision to wear t-shirts in support of Suarez, but mostly just so much anger and so much argument, at a level beyond the normal.
9. Jose Mourinho proclaims himself “the special one”, 2004-05
Whatever people think of Mourinho now, there can be no denying he offered a line for the ages, one of those that adds an extra sparkle to the game and will always be referred to. This incomparable entrance to English football was still so much than a performance to burnish his own legend, though. It merely illustrated the Portuguese’s deep belief in himself, a belief that would immediately fire Chelsea to record points hauls in successive title wins, and raise the standards of the entire Premier League including Sir Alex Ferguson. Those words helped paint thousands of pictures of victory.
8. Andrea Bocelli serenades and celebrates Claudio Ranieri and Leicester City, 2015-16
The winning of this most spectacularly improbable of titles was really with the 3-1 victory away to Manchester City in January, but the fact that came so early and gave Leicester such an authoritative position meant there was no real on-pitch moment of realisation, no crescendo in that sense to truly reflect how remarkable all this was. It’s arguably all the more appropriate that it is an off-field moment of opera that best symbolises this title win, since it adds to just how surreal and magical this was. Bocelli serenely singing Nessun Dorma on the KingPower Stadium pitch as Ranieri stood there is something we’d never seen before - and all of this was something we may never see again.
7. Collymore closes in, 1995-96
The game that helped build so much of the modern hype, and that can always be pointed as the ultimate example of what the Premier League can offer. Liverpool-Newcastle United still wouldn’t have been quite the game with everything without a title-race-tilting late winner, though, and that’s exactly what it got as Stan Collymore exploded into the box to make it 4-3.
6. The final minute of the season, 1994-95
Just like in 2011-12, this saw a dramatic last-minute goal in the title race, but the real significance - and sensation - was from the shots somehow not going in. Blackburn Rovers may have been remarkably - in Sir Alex Ferguson’s words “bottling it” to lose 2-1 late on at Liverpool but that was rendered irrelevant by West Ham United’s 1-1 draw at home with Manchester United, who by then simply needed one goal to claim a third title in a row. That they didn’t get it remains astonishing, given the pummelling they subjected the Upton Park goal to, but then Ludek Miklosko’s defiant display in goal was just an astonishing. With the whole episode only further charged by the fact Kenny Dalglish needed a result against a Liverpool side who would have loved him winning it, as well as Eric Cantona’s suspension, it all added up to glorious, and a unique manner of victory to go with Blackburn’s unique title.
5. Eric Cantona’s kick, 1994-95
No matter what has happened in the Premier League since, or how hyped up everything is, there will never be anything to match this in terms of pure shock. The very idea of a player launching himself into the crowd to attack some remains almost incredible, all the more so when it is the competition’s best and most famous - if not necessarily the most serene.
Cantona was already getting frustrated in Manchester United’s eventual 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace, before kicking out at Richard Shaw, getting red-carded and then getting a volley of abuse as he walked down the touchline. The rest is hysteria. And yet, for all the justifiable criticism of Cantona and the wonder about what would be said in today’s media climate, it only ended up adding to his legend as one of the Premier League’s greatest.
The moral story behind his eventual nine-month ban was already complicated by the identity of his abuser Matthew Simmons, who was alleged to have shouted “f*** off back to France”, and it all only enriched and fired Cantona’s eventual 1995-96 double-winning redemption as the clear-minded match-winner in so many big games. This was part of his legend, part of that genius, a key part of Premier League history.
4. Kevin Keegan loves it… and loses it, 1995-96
An explosive moment of human pantomime that was always beyond parody because it so instantly devolved into self-parody, but there has always been a genuinely dramatic richness to this that has arguably been underplayed. Even before Keegan gets to that impassioned but thoroughly impotent crescendo of a famous line after this 1-0 Newcastle United win over Leeds United, there is the voice cracking as he struggles to comprehend how Sir Alex Ferguson could possibly be so unreasonable and “object” to when his side were playing another fixture against “Notts Forest on Thursday”. The whole point, of course, was that the Manchester United manager knew it would get a reaction like this.
If the actual significance of this moment in the 1995-96 title race has been exaggerated, its real relevance was in reflecting that Keegan had lost it in a more literal sense, since all the focus and momentum was with the other United. Ferguson was simply playing a game he couldn’t keep up with, and this helped only further the Scot’s aura, while moulding the very modern concept of ‘mind games’ that would add an extra layer of tension to every title race thereafter even if it was someway superficial. There was nothing superficial about Keegan’s reaction. It was to become the managerial breakdown always referred to, the TV moment benchmark - and was just superb television in itself.
3. Steven Gerrard slips, and Liverpool lose their grip on the title, 2013-14
One of those sporting moments that almost feels like great fiction in how it brings so many thematic narrative strands together so perfectly - unless, of course, you’re Gerrard or involved with Liverpool. Just two weeks after the club captain had tried to so consciously lead by example by demanding that the league leaders “do not let this slip”… he slipped, to see Demba Ba score, Chelsea win 2-0 and the fate of the trophy to go into Manchester City’s hands.
Adding to it was how Liverpool had looked so unstoppable up to that match as they were on an 11-game winning run, but they didn’t necessarily look it up to that moment as Jose Mourinho had - rather admirably - created one of the game’s classic dichotomies by going so ultra-defensive against the Luis Suarez-led free-scoring attack. It was almost a vintage game for one of the competition’s greatest managers as much as a vintage Premier League game, since he wasn’t just stopping that Liverpool.
He was prolonging a painful wait for the title for the most successful pre-Premier League club, and ensuring the relative sporting tragedy that one of the greatest Premier League players would never lift it.
2. Steve Bruce’s double against Sheffield Wednesday, 1992-93
Right at the end of a tense and tempestuous match, there was the start of so much. By scoring two late headers to give Manchester United a dramatic 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday, Bruce effectively secured the first of Sir Alex Ferguson’s 13 league titles, set in motion a new dynasty while also defining one of the core qualities that drove it as he effectively created the concept of ‘Fergie Time’.
United weren’t just waiting those agonising final few minutes, of course, but 26 years. A ceiling had been smashed, as Bruce, and the club, rose above so much and so many. Ferguson’s joyous leap was just another symbol of that.
1. Sergio Aguero seals it in the final seconds, 2011-12
There may have been better goals and there may have been better champions, but there has simply never been a single moment in the other 25 years like this, one that brought the season down to the literal last seconds and had the maximum possible significance: a goal that settled the title itself. No equivocation, no caveats, no time for anything else. Pure spectacle and pure pandemonium.
The nature and time of Aguero’s sensational goal in City’s 3-2 win over QPR ensured a sense of emotion unmatched in Premier League history, with that only amplified because of Manchester City’s idiosyncratic history and how they ended a 44-year wait by beating their greatest rivals to first place, while giving the new regime their first league and finally full value for all that money.
With one sweeping strike of Aguero’s boot, the past was banished and future set, for a moment that went down in history
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments