This article describes the FA Premier League 2000-01 season.

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For the third season running, the 2000-01 Premier League campaign ended with Manchester United as champions and Arsenal as runners-up. Sir Alex Ferguson (who had been knighted in June 1999) became the first manager to win three successive English league titles, although three teams (Arsenal, Huddersfield and Liverpool) had achieved that feat in the past - but with managerial changes in between. Liverpool, meanwhile, managed a unique cup treble - winning the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup. They also finished third in the Premiership and qualified for the Champions League, they had not played in the European Cup since the 1985 final at Heysel in which 39 spectators were killed - and all English teams banned from Europe for five years, while Liverpool were subjected to a six-year ban.

Management Changes

Despite the amazing success achieved by Sir Alex Ferguson and Gerard Houllier, the Manager of the Year Award went to George Burley. The Ipswich Town manager was in charge of a newly promoted side who began the season as relegation favourites, and on limited resources surprised everyone by guiding his team to fifth place in the Premiership final table - and a place in the UEFA Cup for the first time in almost 20 years. 2000-01 was perhaps the best seasons yet for newly promoted teams in the Premiership. Charlton Athletic finished ninth - their highest finish since the 1950s. The only newly promoted team to suffer relegation was Manchester City, who in the space of seven seasons had now been relegated four times and promoted twice. Relegated in bottom place was Bradford City, whose return to the top division after almost 80 years was over after just two seasons. The next relegation place went to Coventry City, who were finally relegated after 34 successive seasons of top division football which had brought numerous relegation battles and league finishes no higher than sixth place.

During 2000-01, more than half of the English league's 92 clubs underwent at least one managerial change and Premiership clubs also had their fair share of changes.

Bradford City manager Paul Jewell had quit during the close season, and his successor Chris Hutchings was dismissed in November to make way for Jim Jeffries. But the change of management was not enough to prevent Bradford from being relegated in bottom place. Joe Royle was sacked as Manchester City manager shortly after they were relegated (in four seasons as manager he had seen the club get relegated to Division Two and then win two successive promotions before finally being relegated from the Premiership again).

George Graham was sacked as Tottenham manager in March despite guiding the club to the F.A Cup semi finals, the reason for his dismissal was that he had allegedly breached his contract. He was replaced by Southampton manager Glenn Hoddle, who in turn was replaced by Stuart Gray .

In September, Gianluca Vialli had been sacked as manager of F.A Cup winners Chelsea and replaced by another Italian, Claudio Ranieri.

At the end of the season, Bryan Robson resigned after seven years as Middlesbrough manager. He had spent most of the 2000-01 as joint manager in partnership with Terry Venables, who also left the club. Middlesbrough replaced Robson and Venables with Manchester United assistant manager Steve McClaren .

Just before the end of the season, Harry Redknapp left West Ham United under mysterious circumstances after seven years as manager - it was uncertain as to whether he had resigned or been sacked. Redknapp was replaced by first team coach Glenn Roeder, whose two previous brief and unsuccessful spells in management had been in the lower divisions with Gillingham and then Watford.

Transfers

In November 2000, the English transfer record was broken for the first time in more than four years. The £15million record set when Alan Shearer moved from Blackburn to Newcastle in July 1996 had been equalled in May 2000 when Chelsea paid Atletico Madrid £15million for Dutch striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, but now it was broken when Leeds United paid West Ham £18million for 22-year-old central defender Rio Ferdinand.