Days in first place: Premier League title races, 1992-93 to 2025-26
The longest anyone has led a Premier League race without winning it: Newcastle United ended 82 of the 1995-96 English Premier League race's 106 playing days in first place, 77% of them, and finished behind Manchester United. The longest unbroken spell of that lead ran 65 days. At the other end, Manchester City won the 2013-14 English Premier League race having led on nine of its 95 playing days, never more than two in a row. Both lists below rank by the share of a race's playing days a team spent in first place. How that is counted is spelled out under the lists.
Manchester United led the 2011-12 English Premier League race on 37 of its 104 playing days, 36% of them, and finished behind Manchester City.
Winners who led least
Manchester City won the 2013-14 English Premier League race having led on 9 of its 95 playing days, 9% of them, and took first place for good on May 7, 2014.
Manchester United won the 2002-03 English Premier League race having led on 13 of its 97 playing days, 13% of them, and took first place for good on April 12, 2003.
Arsenal won the 2001-02 English Premier League race having led on 21 of its 102 playing days, 21% of them, and took first place for good on April 21, 2002.
Manchester United won the 1995-96 English Premier League race having led on 22 of its 106 playing days, 21% of them, and took first place for good on March 23, 1996.
Manchester City won the 2022-23 English Premier League race having led on 25 of its 117 playing days, 21% of them, and took first place for good on May 3, 2023.
Manchester City won the 2023-24 English Premier League race having led on 27 of its 120 playing days, 23% of them, and took first place for good on May 14, 2024.
Arsenal won the 1997-98 English Premier League race having led on 24 of its 105 playing days, 23% of them, and took first place for good on April 18, 1998.
Manchester United won the 1992-93 English Premier League race having led on 35 of its 119 playing days, 29% of them, and took first place for good on April 10, 1993.
Manchester United won the 2007-08 English Premier League race having led on 36 of its 96 playing days, 38% of them, and took first place for good on March 15, 2008.
Manchester United won the 1998-99 English Premier League race having led on 41 of its 104 playing days, 39% of them, and took first place for good on May 9, 1999.
How these lists are ranked
Everything on this page comes from the same season files the charts draw, with standings read as each day ended. All 34 charted Premier League races from 34 finished seasons enter: every title race from 1992-93 to 2025-26. Wild card races are not ranked; their story is the playoff cutoff, not first place. The 2026-27 season joins these lists when it ends. A team's time in first place is counted once per season, at its longest, whichever of its charted races it came in.
Longest leads lost is the club that ended the most of a race's playing days in first place and did not finish first. Any club in the race qualifies, not the runner-up alone, because a club can lead for four months and finish fifth.
Winners who led least is the same count for the club that did win, ranked from the fewest days up. Each row closes on the day that winner took first place for good, which the comebacks page ranks on.
Only days this race's teams played are counted, the same rule the closest races page counts closeness over. A strike or a pause freezes the standings, and a leader sitting out an idle stretch would collect time on top for nothing.
The ranking is by share rather than by the raw count, because a league's seasons are not all the same length and a short one would otherwise win by being short. Seasons cut short by a strike or a stoppage are ranked on what was played, which is the same rule and the reason for it. The count and the total are printed beside the share, so the order can be checked; where two rows print the same whole percent, the unrounded share put them in that order.
A day two clubs end level at the top is a day in first place for both of them, which is what holding first place means in English. So the two counts of one race can add up to more than the race's playing days. Races whose top two the standings cannot separate appear on neither list: with no winner, the data can name neither the club that lost a lead nor the club that kept one.
A lead measured in days and a lead measured in points are different questions, and the two lists often disagree about which season was the bigger collapse; the comebacks page ranks the same blown leads by size. Only finished seasons are ranked; every irregularity in the record is listed in the data notes.