2001-2002
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For the first time, four Champions League positions were up for grabs giving rise to the term ‘Big 4’ in the Premier League. Arsenal ended Manchester United’s dominance and went on to clinch the title at Old Trafford with a 1-0 win. They won the FA cup too that season winning their third double.
The season was interesting as 4-5 teams were fighting for the title – Manchester United, Arsenal, Newcastle United, Leeds United and Liverpool. Arsenal ended the season with a 13 game winning streak ending with a 1-0 win over Everton with David Moyes coming in. George Burley who was named Manager of the Year previous year was sacked indicating how quickly fortunes change in football.
2002-2003
This season saw United wrestle back from being 8 points adrift of Arsenal as of 2nd March winning the title yet again; 8 times in the last 11 years. Rio Ferdinand was bought by United by breaking the British record fee, so we can conclude that United were never afraid to spend the big buck.
We were also introduced with Wayne Rooney with him scoring against an Arsenal side and making his debut memorable. Would he make it a habit of doing that with debuts? We shall see.
Liverpool started the season with a 12 match unbeaten run and then followed it with 11 matches without a win which saw them finish 5th behind Manchester United, Arsenal, Newcastle United, Chelsea. The big no. 7 of United was also vacated as David Beckham departed for Real Madrid and Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola also departed the Premier League. The following summer was interested was Chelsea as Mr. Roman Abramovic took over as owner of the club.
2003-2004
Arsenal were Invincibles! They had gone onto win the title without a league defeat. The summer was busy with Chelsea spending heavily on transfers and thus were forming a formidable team but ended up being bested by the Invincibles who ended up with 26 wins, 12 draws, 0 defeats and 90 points and a Golden Premier League Trophy. The season also saw Manchester United finish outside the top 2 positions for the very first time since the Premier League had begun.
Arsenal’s invincible run would have never started if Ruud van Nistelrooy would have converted his penalty. The match was tense and as United were awarded a penalty in the 92nd minute, the situation boiled over even more. As Nistelrooy missed his penalty, the Arsenal players surrounded him and especially Martin Keown who abused and seemed to hit him on his head at the end of the match.
This was certainly one of the tensest matches of the Premier League era and you knew the rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United was only going to go up from here, or was it?
We saw the consolidation of the Big 4 and City moving to City of Manchester Stadium from Maine Road.
