Since the first Premier League season

Since the first Premier League season in 1992–93, 14 different players from 10 different clubs have won or shared the top scorers title.^[132] Thierry Henry won his third consecutive and fourth overall scoring title by scoring 27 goals in the 2005–06 season. This surpassed Shearer's mark of three titles which he won consecutively from 1994–95 through 1996–97. Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/R Battery

Other multiple winners include Michael Owen,Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Didier Drogba who have won two titles each. Andrew Cole and Alan Shearer hold the record for most goals in a season (34) – for Newcastle and Blackburn respectively. Cole's record came in the 1993–94 season, while Shearer's came in 1994–95, Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/W Battery

both of which were 42-game seasons.^[133] Shearer's mark of 31 goals from a 38-game season in 1995–96 was equalled in the 2007–08 season by Cristiano Ronaldo.^[134] Five goals is the record individual scoring total for a player in a single Premier League game held by four players; Andy Cole, Alan Shearer, Jermain Defoe and Dimitar Berbatov.^[135] Sony VAIO VPCCW26EC Battery

Only Ryan Giggs of Manchester United has scored in all 20 completed seasons.^[136]

Manchester United became the first team to have scored 1,000 goals in the league after Cristiano Ronaldo scored in a 4–1 defeat by Middlesbrough in the 2005–06 season.^[137] Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Sony VAIO VPCCW26FX/B Battery

Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United are the only other teams to have reached the 1,000-goal mark, with Newcastle being the latest team to do so after Demba Ba's first goal against Everton on 17 September 2012.

In English football, a gulf has arisen between the finances of clubs from the Premier League and Sony VAIO VPCCW28EC Battery

The Football League since the First Division clubs broke away to form the Premier League in 1992. Some have argued that this disparity is wider than in other European leagues where the top flight is combined with at least one division below in a league, such as Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga. Sony VAIO VPCCW28FJ/P Battery

However, England has five tiers of single national divisions, compared to only two in Spain and Italy and three in Germany.

Since the Premier League began as the FA Premier League at the start of the 1992–93 season, its member teams have received larger amounts of money in TV rights than their Football League colleagues. Sony VAIO VPCCW28FJ/R Battery

Prior to the formation of the Premier League, television revenues from top flight matches were shared between the 92 Football League clubs across 4 unified national professional divisions. The break away of 22 clubs to form the Premier League resulted in top flight revenues being shared exclusively between Premier League clubs.^[1] Sony VAIO VPCCW28FJ/W Battery

The FA Premier League agreed to maintain the promotion and relegation of three clubs with the Football League, but The Football League was now in a far weaker position – without its best clubs and without the clout to negotiate high revenue TV deals. This problem was exacerbated in 2002 when ITV Digital, Sony VAIO VPCCW29FJ/W Battery

holder of TV rights for The Football League, went into administration. Many League clubs had invested in ground improvements and the player transfer market with anticipated television funds that never materialized, causing several clubs to enter receivership – most notably Bradford City, who were faced with debts of £36million and almost lost their Football League status as a result. Sony VAIO VPCCW2AFJ Battery

As a result, financial disparity has been cited as a reason for newly promoted teams finding it increasingly harder to establish themselves in the Premiership, thus worrying more about avoiding relegation than winning the title. Sony VAIO VPCCW2AHJ Battery

The Premiership relegation places have been filled by at least one newly promoted club in all but 2 of the 20 seasons since its introduction, and in the 1997–98 season all three clubs were relegated. The only exceptions were the 2001–02 season(Fulham, Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers), Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E Battery

and the 2011–12 season (Queens Park Rangers, Norwich City and Swansea City) in which all the three promoted teams survived. Fulham is still competing in the Premier League; Blackburn and Bolton were relegated after the 2011-12 season.

The Premier League distributes a small portion of its television revenue to clubs that are relegated from the league in the form of "parachute payments".Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/B Battery

Starting with the 2006–07 season, these payments are in the amount of £6.5 million over the club's first two seasons in lower leagues.^[2] Though designed to help teams adjust to the loss of television revenues (the average Premier League team receives £45 million while the average Football League Championship club receives £1 million^[2]), Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/L Battery

critics maintain that the payments actually widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premiership and those that have not,^[3]leading to the common occurrence of teams returning soon after their relegation. This, however, does not take into account former Premiership mainstays which currently are in The Football League, Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/P Battery

such as Wimbledon (who became Milton Keynes Dons in 2004 on their relocation from South London to Milton Keynes),Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry City and Leeds United, who were founding members of the Premiership and stayed there for between nine and 12 years before going down, and have yet to return. Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/R Battery

Queens Park Rangers (also a founding Premier League club) saw a 15 year absence from the Premier League, before finally returning for the 2011–2012 season.

The payments have been also criticised as causing Premiership teams to play more cautiously—playing not to lose instead of playing to win—because the threat of relegation means the loss of payments from the television rights. Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/W Battery

In fact, as of December 2006, the goals-per-game average is only 2.14, the lowest it has ever been in Premiership history and lower than any other professional league in Europe.

The Curse of Christmas refers to a trend where the team at the bottom of the table at Christmas has been relegated at the end of the season every year except one (2004/05 West Bromwich Albion) since the Premiership started in 1992.^[5] Sony VAIO VPCCW2S5C CN1 Battery

The achievement has since been dubbed 'The Great Escape' due to its improbability, particularly as West Brom were still bottom of the league on the morning of the last day of the season. Sony VAIO VPCF112FX/B Battery

The last time a top division team had achieved this feat was in 1990–91, when Sheffield United avoided relegation after being bottom of the penultimate pre-Premiership First Division on 25 December 1990. After 16 matches, the club had no wins and less than 10 points, but their form improved dramatically in the second half of the season. Sony VAIO VPCF115FG/B Battery

A run of seven successive wins helped them to finish in 13th place out of 22.

Certain teams are notable for extremely poor seasons as a result of inability to come to terms with the gulf.

Swindon Town were the first such example in the 1993–94 season, when they won a mere five games out of 42 and conceded 100 goals Sony VAIO VPCF116FGBI Battery

(still a Premier League record) in their first (and to date only) season as a top flight club. One of the few bright spots of the season came when they held Manchester United (who went on to win the league title and FA Cup) to a 2–2 draw in March, and having lost 4–2 to them earlier in the season they scored more goals against the title winning side bar also relegated Oldham Athletic than any other club in the league that season. Sony VAIO VPCF117FJ/W Battery

Sunderland, who had set the previous record as the "worst ever Premier League club" in 2002–03 with four wins, 19 points and 21 goals, set a new record in 2005–06, when one season after promotion they went straight back down with just three wins and 15 points, though as some consolation they scored more goals than they had the previous time. Sony VAIO VPCF117HG/BI Battery

Derby County won just one league game out of 38 in the 2007–08 (1–0 at home to Newcastle United on 17 September 2007) and finished with 11 points. This was a record low for Premier League points and wins (as well as a new low of 20 goals), and only the second team ever to complete an English professional league campaign with one win in a season (the other was Loughborough in 1900). Sony VAIO VPCF118FJ/W Battery

This came one year after they had been promoted as Championship playoff winners.

There have been some strong performances by newly promoted clubs in the Premier League – particularly in its first few seasons. Blackburn Rovers were among the three teams who won promotion to the Premier League upon its formation, Sony VAIO VPCF119FC Battery

and bankrolled by owner Jack Walker's millions they were able to attract some of the best players in English football – most notably £3.6 million national record signing Alan Shearer. They finished fourth in their first Premier League season.Ipswich Town, one of the other promoted teams that season, Sony VAIO VPCF119FC/BI Battery

were among the top five clubs as late as February 1993 and were being tipped as surprise title contenders, but a late slump in form dragged them down to 16th place.

In the second season of the Premier League, newly promoted Newcastle United finished third – the same position which was occupied by another newly promoted side, Sony VAIO VPCF119FJ/BI Battery

Nottingham Forest, the following year. With the exception of Ipswich Town in 2001, this was the last time a newly promoted club finished in the top five.

Middlesbrough finished 12th in the 1995–96 season after promotion, but 10 games into the season they occupied fourth place – high enough for UEFA Cup qualification -^[6] – and were being touted as outsiders for the Premier League title. Sony VAIO VPCF11AFJ Battery

In 1996–97, newly promoted Leicester City achieved top flight survival for the first time since 1986 by finishing ninth and also winning the Football League Cup to end their 33-year trophy drought.^[7] Middlesbrough had been relegated from the Premier League in 1997 two years after promotion Sony VAIO VPCF11AGJ Battery

(though only through a points deduction) and were promoted back at the first attempt, and in their first Premier League campaign following relegation they finished ninth in the Premier League and only narrowly missed out on UEFA Cup qualification.^[8] Sony VAIO VPCF11AHJ Battery

Sunderland were promoted to the Premier League as Division One champions with a new record of 105 league points in 1999, and marked their return to the top flight by finishing seventh and only missing out on UEFA Cup qualification on goal difference.

Charlton Athletic's return to the Premier League as Division One champions for the 2000–01 season was marked with a ninth place finish – their highest for some 50 years.^[10] Sony VAIO VPCF11JFX/B Battery

In 2001–02, Blackburn Rovers returned to the Premier League two years after relegation and marked it with their first Football League Cup triumph, and a late surge in form following the trophy win took them clear of the relegation zone to a secure 10th place finish.^[11] Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E Battery