The prospect of Manchester City being stripped of their Premier League titles might have some of their old rivals wondering if they need to clear space in their trophy cabinets.

Speculation is rife over what happens next after the bombshell news last week that City have been found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges against them.

A fine? A points deduction? Demotion down the leagues? It’s anyone’s guess, really, and it could be a while before we find out.

Among all the outcomes, there have already been shouts for the titles City have won in the affected period to be removed from their honours list.

In that case, the trophies could be reallocated to the runners up from each season. That’d be Manchester United in 2011-12, 2017-18 and 2020-21, Liverpool in 2013-14, 2018-19 and 2021-22, and Arsenal in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

There were some great teams among them, no doubt, but who would be the most surprising individuals reclassified as Premier League winners from those campaigns if City’s titles were re-awarded?

We’ve only included players who made at least five Premier League appearances in the season in question, in line with the usual criteria for receiving a medal.

What a time Aspas is having of it lately.

Celta Vigo have named a stand after him and confirmed plans to erect a statue in honour of his incredible service to the club. Imagine if it got even better for the striker by becoming a retrospective Premier League champion as well.

Aspas failed to score from his 14 Premier League appearances for Liverpool in the 2013-14 season. It wasn’t a major issue for Brendan Rodgers’ side, with Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge banging in more than 50 goals between them, but Aspas never got another chance in English football.

Alexis Sanchez & Henrikh Mkhitaryan

A joint-entry here – shouldn’t take you too long to work out why.

At their peaks, Sanchez and Mkhitaryan were brilliant players, far better than many of the names they’re in the company of here.

But their swap deal midway through the 2017-18 season, which saw Sanchez go to Man Utd and Mkhitaryan to Arsenal, is regarded as a disaster.

And yet both players would have qualified for a medal given the number of games they each played for United that season.

It took seven years with Arsenal for Holding to be part of a squad that placed second in the league, and it was after that achievement in 2023 that he bowed out at the Emirates.

The former Bolton defender never quite established himself as an Arsenal regular, only once playing in more than half of their Premier League games in a given season.

He played 14 times in the league in his final season, only six times as a starter.

In the 18 months that followed with Crystal Palace, he never even played in another Premier League game.

The move to Manchester United felt like a step too far for James in 2019, just half a year after he came close to a cross-Championship move from Swansea to Leeds.

And yet he could have been picking up a Premier League medal in his second season at Old Trafford, when he started 11 times and scored three goals.

James left the club later in the same year, finally linking up with Leeds.

Liverpool academy graduate Kelly eventually became a serviceable enough mid-table Premier League player during his time with Crystal Palace, but could have made that 2014 move on the back of Premier League glory.

The defender only made five league appearances, all as a sub, in his last season with Liverpool.

Another one from the full-back to come through the Liverpool academy category. 2013-14 was Flanagan’s breakout year, in which he made 23 Premier League appearances.

Flanagan left Liverpool permanently in 2018 after loans at Burnley and Bolton. He ultimately retired at just 29 due to persistent injuries, never having added to that one England cap.

Cissokho spent the 2013-14 season on loan at Liverpool, but only started 12 Premier League games in a generally forgettable spell.

He hadn’t been Rodgers’ primary target in the first place and, with the exception of a spell over the winter, struggled to string together meaningful gametime.

The defender remained in the Premier League after his loan by joining Aston Villa, but suffered relegation with them two years later.

Telles arrived at Man Utd in 2020 with a decent-looking CV, including spells in Europe with Galatasaray, Inter and Porto.

But the Brazilian left-back is widely seen as an Old Trafford failure. Would the perception have been different if he’d won the Premier League in his debut season?

Given he only played nine times in that campaign, probably not. His gametime increased the season after, but that was the end of the road for him in England.

Tuanzebe played once for United in the 2017-18 season, but that wouldn’t have got him a medal automatically if they’d won the league.

The defender would have got his hands on one for his efforts in 2020-21, though, by virtue of playing nine times.

He never represented United again beyond that point, with loan spells at Aston Villa, Napoli and Stoke all not working out before he was released and joined Ipswich.

There aren’t as many Arsenal players to reflect on here, because many of them that were Premier League runners-up to City in 2023 and 2024 were still at the club last season to become champions for real.

But Sambi Lokonga stands out as one of Arsenal’s former runners-up who just wasn’t quite up to the level they were evolving towards.

He joined the club in 2021 but only played six times in the league in his second season before being loaned to Crystal Palace.

The Belgium international was never reintegrated by Arsenal, instead getting relegated on loan at Luton Town the season after and then having a scare with Sevilla in La Liga.

After crossing paths with Red Bull Salzburg in the 2018-19 Champions League, Liverpool took a look at one of the attackers who scored against them and thought, yep, they’d have a bit of that.

Trouble was, it wasn’t Erling Haaland. It was Minamino.

The Japanese winger was a decent player, but his best form as a Liverpool player arguably came when he was on loan at Southampton.

He only played 11 times in the league for Liverpool after his return, all in the season he’d be a hypothetical champion for.

Donny van de Beek

Speaking of the 2018-19 Champions League, of all the prospects that helped Ajax reach the semi-finals that season, Van de Beek is the biggest case of unfulfilled potential.

The midfielder only played in half of United’s league games in his first season after moving in 2020, when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side finished second to City.

And it was pretty much all downhill from there for Van de Beek’s Premier League career. United later sold him for a paltry initial fee of half a million euros in 2024.

File alongside Aspas from earlier as a Spaniard who came to Liverpool, failed, but made a decent career for himself elsewhere.

The midfielder only played in nine Premier League games in his only season in England, none of which were as a starter.

He didn’t play a part in any of the last 15 games of Liverpool’s ultimately fruitless title charge of 2013-14.

After a couple of loan spells back in his native country, it was in Italy with Lazio that he established himself thereafter.

Full disclosure: we’ve kind of lost track of when Nelson last actually played for Arsenal after his time there ended with some loans away.

Turns out he could have been a two-time Premier League winner after playing enough for the Gunners in both 2022-23 and 2023-24.

All 11 of the winger’s appearances in the first of those seasons were from the bench, as were all but one of his 15 in the latter.

And when Arsenal did finally get over the line to win the league last season, Nelson was a benchwarmer on loan at Brentford.

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