The ranking of the 10 best Premier League teams of all time before this Man City side makes it moot

Fun debate, isn't it? Who is the best Premier League team of all time? We have a top 10 you disagree with here.

A few basic (rather fluid) rules. We left for just one season, but obviously a lot of these teams have had multiple seasons of greatness. We tried to identify the absolute high season, which was funny because we had to leave out the Treble winners. Oh yes, that's because it's specifically the Premier League. Our League. The good stuff. Not that foreign shit.

When two or more iterations of the same team are included, we've applied arbitrarily, but we like to think of fair rules for whether there's been enough evolution for them to be valid. a significantly different or separate side. So we couldn't just cheat and have United 99 and United 2000. Consider them a shared entry if you wish. Or not. You decide.

One thing we definitely didn't use to determine the rankings is the stark, lackluster number of endpoint totals. On the one hand the league has changed a lot in 30 years with more and more points being amassed at the top these days in football's sleazy little version of the trickle down economy, while on the other hand we know obviously better than these chores as results. We're also pretty strict here that, by definition, the top teams will all be teams that have won the title, and just basing it on points muddies that.

Anyway, here's our list…

10) Arsenal 1997/98P38 W23 D9 L6 GF68 GA33 Pts 78

There are plenty of contenders for 10th place on this list. Dreamers would probably opt for Leicester's Miracle Men, which would be fair enough. But there's no denying that literally everyone was crap that year and, quite simply, we don't think the Leicester team beat any of the other teams on this list, or - especially - that of Arsenal.

There is also a larger context to consider. This Arsenal team is of vital importance in the entire history of the Premier League. Without Arsene Wenger snatching the title – and The Double – in his first full season, we might never have had the rivalry with United and Ferguson that became such a defining feature of the Premier League's first decade. It might as well have meant United winning the title every year, which would have been terribly boring. They didn't even have nonsense like Erling Haaland to make it interesting.

Arsenal had been in the post-George Graham doldrums for a few years but did some very important things in August and September 1996. In August they signed Patrick Vieira for £3.5million. In September, they named Arsene Wenger manager. He took them to third place in 96/97 with a distinctly 1990s points haul for such an accomplishment of 68.

The following year, they overthrew United and became the third different team to win a Premier League title. In addition to its overriding narrative importance, it's how this win puts them on this list.

A run of four defeats in six games in November and December left Arsenal trailing the unstoppable and conquering United by 12 points and languishing in sixth place. The idea of ​​winning The Double then seemed particularly far-fetched. The Gunners did not lose another game until May, by which time a 10-game winning streak had already secured the title. Losing their last two games of the season for a laugh only adds to the legend, in our opinion.

Best XI: Seaman; Dixon, Bould, Adams, Winterburn; Overmars, Parlor, Vieira, Small; Bergkamp, ​​Wright

Other notables: Keown, Anelka, Grimandi

9) Chelsea 2016/17P38 W30 D3 L5 GF85 GA33 Pts 93

We feel that this Chelsea team is probably an unfairly overlooked touch when the big teams are discussed. They may be slipping under the radar, coming as they did in the year between the Great Leicester Fairytale and the boisterous City-Liverpool years of excellence that followed.

But this team's record stands up to scrutiny, and in context, it's an even more startling achievement. Chelsea had finished 10th the previous season and the club were in trouble when Antonio Conte was brought in to right the ship. They didn't start the season well either. Back-to-back defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal in the first six games of the season put Conte under enormous pressure, but he and his team responded with one of the most successful tactical changes of all time.

Entered the Tale 3-4-3 we all know and love now, and they ran away. Thirteen straight wins followed and Chelsea never looked back. New signings David Luiz, Marcos Alonso and N'Golo Kante were all crucial as the Blues put all the annoyances of the previous campaign...