Newcastle United top list of best-promoted teams in Premier League history – originally posted on Sportslens.com
Leeds United have surprised many in the top flight with their flamboyant and dynamic style of play.
The Yorkshire team, after gaining promotion to the Premier League by winning the Championship at the end of the 2019-20 season, finished at an impressive ninth in the table in their first season in the top flight since 2004.
But do Marcelo Bielsa’s men rank in the list of top five best newly promoted teams in the history of the Premier League?
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Sunderland (1999/00)
Total points: 58, Final position: 7th
Here is a quiz for football fanatics. Who is the only Englishman to win the European Golden Shoe? No, it’s not Michael Owen. Not Gary Lineker either.
It’s former Sunderland and England striker Kevin Phillips who scored an astonishing 30 goals in the 1999/00 season to almost fire Sunderland to European football, which the club painfully missed out on goal difference.
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Ipswich Town (2000/01)
Total points: 66, Final position: 5th
Ipswich Town were tipped by many pundits to be one of the sides to get relegated at the end of the season after gaining promotion to the Premier League by winning the playoffs.
But talisman Marcus Stewart scored 19 goals and Ipswich won 20 league games to finish at an impressive fifth in the table.
Perhaps it was a football anomaly because The Tractor Boys were relegated to the Championship at the end of the following campaign.
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Blackburn Rovers (1992/93)
Total points: 71, Final position: 4th
After Blackburn Rovers secured promotion to the top flight by winning the Division Two playoffs, owner Jack Walker allowed manager Kenny Dalglish to break the British transfer record on a young and talented Southampton striker called Alan Shearer.
Shearer, although restricted to just 21 league appearances, paid dividends by scoring 16 goals. The former England striker suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in a clash against Leeds United in December.
Blackburn went on to finish the season fourth in the league table.
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Nottingham Forest (1994/95)
Total points: 77, Final position: 3rd
Forest jumped back to the Premier League in the 1994/95 season after gaining promotion in their first attempt.
Life without Brian Clough was not too bad as Forest, under the stewardship of Frank Clark, finished an impressive third in the table after accumulating 77 points.
The third-place finish meant that Forest even qualified for the UEFA Cup.
Star striker Stan Collymore scored 22 goals in the league to help Forest mount a serious challenge for the Premier League title.
Unfortunately for Clark, a dip in form midway into the season saw them finish 12 points behind eventual winners Blackburn Rovers.
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Newcastle United (1993/94)
Total points: 77, Final position: 3rd
After spending four years in the second tier, the Kevin Keegan-led Newcastle United secured promotion to the top flight as champions.
In recent years, Leeds United and Wolverhampton Wanderers have been touted as ‘very entertaining’, but they would still not hold a candle to this dynamic Newcastle side that could match any big gun in the Premier League toe to toe.
Andy Cole (Newcastle) scores past Peter Schmeichel (Man Utd). Manchester United v Newcastle, 21/08/1993. 1993/4.
Nicknamed ‘The Entertainers’, Newcastle were spearheaded up front by a young Andy Cole, who scored 34 goals in 40 league appearances to help his side finish third and secure a position in the UEFA Cup.