5 clubs that struggled immediately after winning the Premier League

#4 Leicester City (2016/17)

Leicester struggled in the season after they won the Premier League title

Leicester City’s Premier League title win in 2015/16 was probably the biggest underdog victory in the history of English football, so nobody really expected them to be challenging for the title again in the following season.

But after managing to hold onto most of their key players – Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, Kasper Schmeichel and Danny Drinkwater, with only N’Golo Kante moving to Chelsea – a decent finish was hoped for.

Instead the Foxes got off to a disastrous start, losing to newly-promoted Hull City on the opening day of the season, and where their title rivals had massively strengthened their squads.

Leicester’s signings like Islam Slimani and Ahmed Musa barely made a whisper. By the autumn it was clear that things weren’t getting any better, and the Foxes entered the New Year on a run of five straight defeats.

Title-winning boss Claudio Ranieri was fired in February to attempt to stop the bleeding, and interim boss Craig Shakespeare managed to turn things around by leading the Foxes to five straight wins – staving off the threat of relegation. In the end though Leicester lost 18 games, and finished in 12th place – the lowest of any Premier League defending champions.