Six Clubs Set 2015/16 Premiership Records

Who were the six clubs to register a record breaking or equalling 2015/16 campaign?

The last Premier League season has attracted plenty of media attention; groundbreaking, record breaking, tearing up the supposed rulebooks when it came to Leicester City’s lack of possession and playing a very medievil 442 formation – and what happened to the so called ‘big clubs?’ – but if we move past the superlatives what are we actually left with?

Well very simply, there are six clubs who stand out for achievement in 2015/16.

Leicester City are clearly one of them.

Well, they did win the title!

In April they found themselves seven points clear at the top of the Premier League table when 12 months ago to (that particular) day they found themselves seven points shy of survival.

Can’t begrudge them that.

Having finished second previously in the top flight during their history, it’s obviously a record finish for them.

But they weren’t alone in registering a best ever tally.

Tottenham Hotspur, eventually pipped to second in the table by Arsenal of all clubs, more than ran Leicester close this year and whilst slipping off the pace in the final games will no doubt give rise to real disappointment, Spurs fans can and should be more than pleased with the campaign they had under Mauricio Pochettino as they comfortably finished in the top three.

With a previous best in the Premier League of fourth in 2011/12 and prior to that 2009/10, taking third place is a new record of their own.

Stoke City also had reason to cheer this season under Mark Hughes, as their final day victory over West Ham saw them clinch a third consecutive ninth place finish in the table, and with that kind of consistency and the purchases they made last summer, with some tinkering in the coming months, they’ll be hoping to push a place or two higher to grow that consistency in recent times.

Watford’s head coach Quique Sanchez Flores may have already departed the club, but with history showing their previous two terms in the Premier League has resulted in 20th place and relegation, finishing 13th in the table – despite a poorer second half to the season based on the standards set in the opening months of the campaign – that is a new Premier League highest finish for them.

The same is equally true for fellow promoted side, Bournemouth, who clinched 16th place in the table in their first Premier League campaign.

And finally, that brings us to Southampton where Ronald Koeman continued the work of Nigel Adkins and Mauricio Pochettino, and with seven wins in the final nine games they end last season showing an improved league position for the last six years in a row.

That also includes a new record points tally, and Europa League football for the second straight year – and this season straight into the Group Stages.

With six clubs rewriting their own records books in 2015/16, it becomes the highest number of clubs to do so since 2009/10 where seven clubs took a new record – or equalled their previous best.

With the make up of the top flight last season, whilst only six clubs set themselves out from the rest, a few got to within some points of matching previous bests, but with the three relegated clubs all previously polling top three finishes as their best in the Premier League – they weren’t the only ones to fall short – they just did it more dramatically than anybody else.

Between 1992/93 and 1995/96 clubs played 42 matches a season.