Real Madrid's Galacticos, Steven Gerrard's slip and the worst title collapses in modern football history after Ajax's epic Eredivisie choke

In March 1998, Manchester United enjoyed a 12-point lead over Arsenal. However, the Gunners finished the season in incredible fashion, winning 10 games in a row to overtake the Red Devils at the top of the table, despite some bookmakers actually paying out on a United title triumph.

The Gunners took advantage of their games in hand over United to pip them to glory, and sealed their victory with two games of the campaign remaining.

United would have had a 14-point lead if they had beaten Sheffield Wednesday in March and, having thumped the Owls 6-1 at home earlier in the season, the result did not look in question. Instead, they lost 2-0, before then drawing 1-1 with West Ham.

United were, though, still top going into their do-or-die clash with the Gunners at Old Trafford in May, but Marc Overmars scored a vital winner for the visitors, moving them six points behind their title rivals with three games in hand. And so by the time United kicked-off their final home game, Arsenal were already champions.

Arsene Wenger's side subsequently became only the third team to win the Premier League title after United and Blackburn Rovers, but Ferguson's men would recover to win the treble the following season.

Arsenal sold Thierry Henry in the summer before the 2007-08 season, but without him they developed into a force to be reckoned with, having acquired striker Eduardo to replace the Frenchman, while also placing their trust in Emmanuel Adebayor, who would go on to score 24 league goals over the course of the campaign.

With a new-look frontline, the Gunners opened up a five-point lead with 12 games of the season left having embarked on a run that saw them lose just once in the first half of the campaign. Then, they went to St Andrews to play Birmingham City. The game not only ended in a disappointing 2-2 draw, but Eduardo also sustained a horrific broken ankle while captain William Gallas had what can only be described as a meltdown on the pitch at full-time.

With their captain abdicating responsibility, Arsenal won just one of their next eight games, drawing with the likes of Wigan and Middlesbrough, and were beaten by eventual champions Manchester United.

Arsenal only lost three times in their 38 league games, but they eventually finished third, four points behind the Red Devils. Had Gallas simply kept it together, one has to wonder if the Gunners might have found a way to get over the line for the first time since 2004.

'This does not f*cking slip now'. Steven Gerrard's famous last words proved all too prescient for Liverpool.

The Reds were five points clear after 35 games in 2014, and having beaten Manchester City 3-2 at Anfield, Gerrard gave the Reds a pep talk that was picked up by Sky Sports microphones, in which he maintained the players must keep their focus in the final weeks of the campaign as they needed just seven points from their final three games, against Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Newcastle, to win their first title in a generation.

Instead, Gerrard slipped against the Blues as the Reds lost 2-0 at home before - as the commentary famously said - Liverpool "caved in" at Selhurst Park, throwing away a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3 with Palace.

Brendan Rodgers' side recovered to beat Newcastle on the final day, but it wasn't enough, and the title was on its way to Manchester City. It did, indeed, slip.

Newcastle's Premier League title collapse in 1996 is probably the most memorable in England's top-flight history. With manager Kevin Keegan at the helm, the Magpies' free-wheeling attacking football saw them dubbed the 'Great Entertainers', and they enjoyed a 12-point lead over Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United by mid-January.

The mind games, though, would begin thereafter, culminating in Keegan's infamous 'I will love it' rant.

Between February and April, Newcastle won just two of their eight games, in a run that included one of the greatest fixtures the league has ever seen; their 4-3 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield. Keegan was left slumped over the advertising hoardings as Stan Collymore scored the Reds' late winner, and United only lost one more game for the remainder of the season to overtake the Magpies.

Come the final day of the season, Ferguson's men were champions once more, four points ahead of Keegan's side. So close, yet so far.

In Brazil, fans often say that "some things only happen to Botafogo". In 2023, the Serie A side were aiming to win their first title since 1995, only to embark on the biggest collapse in Brazilian football history.

Having built up a 13-point lead, and led the table for the entirety of the season, they beat America Mineiro 2-1 on October 18. They would, however, not win any of their remaining 11 games that followed.

Amazingly, Botafogo lost five and drew six, and were ultimately consigned to a fifth-placed finish. Palmeiras, meanwhile, finished the season six points clear of them, and two clear of Gremio in second.

As dreadful and historic a collapse as it was, it is perhaps even more remarkable that Botafogo won the title and the Copa Libertadores in the following season, finally bringing an end to almost 30 years of near-misses. Maybe Botafogo simply needed to see the depths of despair to understand the joy of victory; not that they realised it at the time.

There had never been a team on the planet with quite the same level of talent as early-2000s Real Madrid. The likes of Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Raul, Iker Casillas and Roberto Carlos were all regularly trotting out in white shirts, hoping to dominate the Spanish top-flight.

Madrid had a 12-point lead going into the final 12 games of the Liga season in 2004, and after a campaign in which they had beaten the likes of Real Valladolid 7-2 and Sevilla 5-1, the title appeared destined for a return to Santiago Bernabeu.

Alarm bells, faint though they were, sounded in November, when Carlos Queiroz's side lost 4-1 to Sevilla, but their thumping win over the Andaluscians in the reverse fixture appeared to put those concerns to bed.

However, in their final seven games, in what turned out to be an astonishing collapse, Madrid lost six times, including a stunning 2-1 defeat to Murcia, who went on to be relegated. Los Blancos ultimately finished fourth, seven points behind champions Valencia, and would not actually win La Liga again until 2006-07. The scars of their collapse did not heal quickly.