Man, 2014 was just different. If you look at the 2014 Premier League football table, it doesn’t just show points and goal differences; it tells the story of a season where logic basically went out the window. It was the year of "The Slip," the year Luis Suárez turned into a human cheat code, and the year Manchester City proved that you don't actually need to lead the league for very long to end up holding the trophy. Honestly, it's probably the most chaotic title race we've seen in the modern era, maybe only rivaled by Leicester's miracle a few years later.
Manchester City finished at the top with 86 points. Just two points ahead of Liverpool. It sounds close, but the way it happened was agonizing. Manuel Pellegrini was the guy in charge at City back then, and while everyone was talking about Liverpool’s "destiny," City just quietly kept winning their games in hand. They weren't always the main characters of the media narrative that season, but by the time the final whistle blew on May 11, 2014, they were the ones lifting the silver.
The chaos at the top of the 2014 Premier League football table
Liverpool fans still find it hard to talk about this. For most of April, it looked like the 24-year wait for a league title was finally over. Brendan Rodgers had them playing this incredibly high-risk, high-reward football. They scored 101 goals. Think about that for a second. You score over a hundred goals and you still don't win the league. That's because they also conceded 50. It was basketball on grass.
Then came the Chelsea game at Anfield. Jose Mourinho turned up with a weakened squad and a giant bus to park in front of the goal. Steven Gerrard’s slip allowed Demba Ba to race through, and suddenly, the momentum didn't just shift; it evaporated. That 0-2 loss to Chelsea followed by the "Crystanbul" collapse—where they drew 3-3 with Crystal Palace after leading 3-0—basically handed the keys to the Etihad.
Manchester City's season was built on a different kind of engine. Yaya Touré was a monster. He scored 20 league goals from midfield. People forget how rare that is. Frank Lampard used to do it, but Touré was doing it with these surging, 60-yard runs where defenders would just bounce off him. He was the real reason City stayed in touch when Liverpool were winning 11 games in a row.
Chelsea and Arsenal: The supporting cast
Chelsea finished third with 82 points. Mourinho kept calling his team a "little horse" that wasn't ready to win the race, which was classic mind games. They actually had the best defensive record in the league, only letting in 27 goals. If they’d had a world-class striker that year—instead of a rotating door of Samuel Eto'o, Fernando Torres, and Demba Ba—they probably walk the league.
Arsenal spent 128 days at the top of the table. More than anyone else! But they finished fourth. It’s sort of the quintessential Arsenal season of that decade. They looked brilliant until February, then they got hammered 5-1 by Liverpool and 6-0 by Chelsea. It was like they just ran out of steam the moment the pressure got real. Still, they got 79 points, which is usually enough to be right in the mix, but in 2014, the quality at the top was just absurdly high.
The mid-table squeeze and the David Moyes "Era"
You can't talk about the 2014 Premier League football table without looking at the disaster at Old Trafford. Manchester United finished 7th. Seventh! After decades of finishing first or second under Sir Alex Ferguson, they ended up behind Everton and Tottenham.
David Moyes took over a title-winning squad and it just crumbled. They lost seven games at home. They were playing a style of football that felt ten years out of date, crossing the ball 81 times in a single game against Fulham (which ended in a draw, naturally). Everton, meanwhile, under Roberto Martínez, finished 5th with 72 points—their highest points tally in the Premier League era. It was a bizarre role reversal where the blue half of Liverpool was playing better football than the red half of Manchester.
Tottenham and the post-Bale transition
Spurs were in a weird spot. They’d just sold Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a world-record fee and tried to replace him with "The Magnificent Seven." It didn't really work. Soldado struggled, Paulinho was hit-or-miss, and André Villas-Boas got sacked mid-season. Tim Sherwood took over, wore a gilet, talked a lot of trash, and somehow guided them to 6th. It wasn't pretty, but it kept them in Europe.
The survival scrap and the "Great Escape"
Down at the bottom, the 2014 table was equally mental. Sunderland were dead. Literally buried. In mid-April, they were bottom of the league, seven points from safety with games against City, Chelsea, and United coming up. Nobody gave them a prayer.
Then Gus Poyet’s team went on a tear. They drew with City, beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (ending Mourinho’s 77-game unbeaten home record), and beat United at Old Trafford. They stayed up with a game to spare. It’s still one of the greatest escapes ever.
- Cardiff City went down in 20th with 30 points.
- Fulham finished 19th with 32 points, ending a long stay in the top flight.
- Norwich City took the final spot in 18th with 33 points.
The gap between safety and relegation was small, but West Brom survived with 36 points despite winning only seven games all season. Seven wins in 38 games and you stay up? That tells you how poor the bottom three were that year.
Why we still talk about 2014
The 2014 Premier League football table represents the end of an era. It was the last time we saw a truly "open" title race before Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp turned the league into a 95-point-minimum requirement. In 2014, you could lose six games—like City did—and still be champions. Today, if you lose six games, you’re fighting for fourth place.
It was also the peak of the "Individual Star" era. Luis Suárez’s season is statistically one of the best in the history of the sport. 31 goals and 12 assists in 33 games. No penalties. He missed the first five games because he bit Branislav Ivanović the previous season, and he still won the Golden Boot by a landslide.
Key stats from the final standings:
- Total Goals: 1,052 (a huge number for that time).
- Most Clean Sheets: Petr Cech and Wojciech Szczęsny (16 each).
- Top Scorer: Luis Suárez (31).
- Most Assists: Steven Gerrard (13).
Looking back, the table shows a league in transition. Legends like Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, and Ryan Giggs were playing their final games for United. Frank Lampard was leaving Chelsea. The old guard was moving out, and the tactical era of high-pressing and "heavy metal" football was just starting to germinate.
If you want to understand why the Premier League is the most-watched league in the world, you study 2014. It had the drama of a soap opera and the quality of a Champions League final nearly every weekend.
Next Steps for Football Historians:
If you are looking to dig deeper into this specific season, you should check out the long-form tactical breakdowns of Brendan Rodgers' 4-4-2 diamond formation. It was a tactical anomaly that almost won a title. Also, look up the "Ref Cam" footage or the behind-the-scenes documentaries regarding Manchester City's final day win against West Ham.
For those analyzing modern trends, compare the 86 points City won the league with in 2014 to the point totals of the last five years. You'll see a massive "points inflation" that has fundamentally changed how teams approach the transfer market. The 2014 season was arguably the last time "vibes" and momentum could compete with the sheer clinical efficiency of the modern super-clubs.
Check the official Premier League archives for the full match-by-match breakdown if you're trying to settle a bet about when exactly the lead changed hands—it happened 25 times at the top of the table that year.