The signing of the summer without doubt was Stan Collymore’s move from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool for a British record fee of £8.5 million. He formed a top striking partnership with Robbie Fowler and the pair got of to a deadly start as Liverpool thrashed Bolton 5-2, with Fowler scoring four goals in the match. On the same day Tony Yeboah scored a hat trick for Leeds and Alan Shearer scored a hat trick for Blackburn. Kevin Keegan made big summer signings, bringing in Les Ferdinand from QPR and David Ginola and they got off to a flying start as they won nine of their first ten matches. In October, Cantona returned to Old Trafford following his nine month ban against Liverpool and he scored their equalizer in a thrilling 2-2 draw against Liverpool. Shearer continued his goal scoring form for Blackburn as he scored another hat trick against Nottingham Forest as Blackburn hammered them 7-0, which in turn ended a 25 match unbeaten run for forest in the league.
By mid January the title race appeared to be over as Newcastle were miles in front at the top with a 12 point advantage, however to everyone’s surprise, Manchester United reduced the gap to four points in March as they thrashed Bolton 6-0 away from home.
The crunch match came between the two top sides, Manchester united and Newcastle, at St James Park at the end of March ended 1-0 to Manchester United as goal keeper Peter Schmeichel put on the performance of his life, making a string of stunning saves.
Manchester United could not repeat their winning performance as they stumbled 3-0 to Southampton by half time, which prompted them to change strip at half time to their blue and white striped shirt as they reduced the deficit to 3-1 by the end of the game.
The most exciting football match of the season came between Newcastle and Liverpool; Liverpool came from behind to beat Newcastle 4-3 as Stan Collymore stole the headlines scoring two late goals for Liverpool.
Both Manchester United and Newcastle had beaten Leeds the following week 1-0 and the title race was now once again open. Alex Ferguson’s mind games with Kevin Keegan resulted in Keegan snapping on television famously saying ‘I will Love it if we beat them, Love it!’ However Newcastle stumbled in their remaining matches, failure to beat Nottingham Forest did not help their cause and Manchester United comfortably beat Middlesborough 3-0 to win their third premier league title.
They ended the season on 82 points which was four points clear of Newcastle. The sides that were relegated included QPR, Manchester City and Bolton, the latter ended bottom in their first season in the premiership.
Dwight Yorke had a fine season for Aston Villa as his 17 goals helped them attain fourth position in the premiership.