5 injuries that totally derailed a Premier League title defence: Van Dijk, Keane…
Manchester City fear losing key midfielder Rodri for the rest of the 2024-25 campaign, a development that could prove hugely important to the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool in this year’s Premier League title race.
The extent of the Spain international’s injury, suffered in Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal, is not yet known. But there are fears that he’s torn his cruciate ligaments, which would likely keep him out of action until next season – and deal a hammer blow to City’s hopes of a fifth straight title in the process.
Pep Guardiola’s side have a famously sketchy record without Rodri, while they rarely lose when he’s on the pitch. He’s considered among the favourites for this year’s Ballon d’Or and is widely regarded as the best midfielder in world football right now. His importance to Manchester City can’t be overstated.
But it wouldn’t be the first time that a big injury suffered by a star player has dramatically altered a title picture. We’ve identified five times that a reigning champions’ title defence was totally derailed by an injury.
Virgil van Dijk
The big one.
Liverpool dropped just two points in their first 27 outings of 2019-20 as they raced to their first title of the Premier League era in blistering fashion. Virgil van Dijk was a rock at the back and barely missed a minute as Jurgen Klopp’s Reds eventually ended up on 99 points, 18 clear of runners-up Manchester City.
They kicked off their post-lockdown title defence with three successive victories, including wins over Chelsea and Arsenal, although cracks started to appear in an absolutely bonkers 7-2 defeat at Aston Villa.
That was a couple of weeks before the season-ending injury suffered by Van Dijk after getting poleaxed by Jordan Pickford in a Merseyside derby.
The loss of their influential leader precipitated a full-on defensive injury crisis, with Klopp required to scramble about with kids and January signings to make do.
In the end, Liverpool recovered to end up a fairly respectable third, but Roy Keane labelled them “bad champions” for ending up 17 points behind Man City.
Aymeric Laporte
Man City were gunning for a third successive title under Pep Guardiola in 2019-20.
That summer they signed Rodri and Joao Cancelo, but the lack of reinforcement in the centre of defence was always a risk following the departure of influential captain Vincent Kompany – and soon exacerbated by a knee injury sustained by anointed successor Laporte in mid-September.
The Spain international was sidelined for three months, in which time City failed to keep up with the relentless pace set by Liverpool. Leroy Sane also spent a sustained period on the treatment table, which didn’t help matters.
Guardiola’s men had dropped 19 points by Christmas, which was more than the entire two previous seasons combined, and were effectively out of the race at the halfway stage.
At the end of the season, they bolstered their defence by signing Ruben Dias – and have since gone on to make it an unprecedented six titles in seven years.
Thibaut Courtois
Chelsea’s infamously dysfunctional 2015-16 title defence is what Antonio Conte might refer to as a “Mourinho season” – there were frankly too many fires to fight at Stamford Bridge for their remarkable nosedive in form to be put down to one factor, or the absence of one player.
But the loss of one of the best goalkeepers in the world certainly can’t have helped matters. Courtois suffered a meniscus tear in mid-September and was sidelined for 10 Premier League matches, of which Chelsea lost five and won just three.
By the time the brilliant Belgian returned for back-to-back defeats to Bournemouth and Leicester in December, any vague hope of retaining their title had long been extinguished. Mourinho was sacked with the Blues just one point off the relegation zone.
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Nemanja Vidic
The 2011-12 title race between Manchester United and Manchester City was one of the most thrilling in Premier League history, capped off with the most dramatic of climaxes when Sergio Aguero scored that goal against QPR.
City pipped United to the top spot by virtue of goal difference. It’s been weirdly forgotten in the years since that United played almost the entirety of that campaign without key defender Nemanja Vidic, once voted the greatest defender in Premier League history, who made just six league appearances that year.
The imposing Serbian was absent for both defeats to City, including the 6-1 at Old Trafford, and missed the entirety of the run-in after suffering a cruciate ligament tear in October 2011.
Jonny Evans actually did pretty well in Vidic’s absence, with United keeping eight clean sheets from their last 11 matches of that campaign. But you can’t imagine that costly 4-4 draw with Everton would’ve happened with Vidic alongside Ferdinand.
Roy Keane
The catalyst for Keane’s beef with Alf-Inge Haaland can be pinpointed back to the Manchester United captain mistiming an awkward challenge on the Leeds midfielder during a 1-0 loss at Elland Road – followed by Erling’s dad barracking Keane, having perceived him to be feigning injury.
Keane actually soldiered on to complete 90 minutes that day in September 1997, but it subsequently emerged he’d torn his cruciate and was out for the rest of the campaign.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils were going for a third successive league title but ended up finishing a point behind Arsenal. It was the only title they failed to win during a six-year period, and you can imagine they’d have probably won that year’s if they’d had their inspirational captain available.