The Premier League season is drawing to a close, and whilst the title race has been sewn up, the relegation battle is set to boil down to the final day with Everton, Leicester City and Leeds United taking up two of the three spots.

Nerves are abound up and down the country, and relegation is the ultimate dark day of the calendar for whoever goes down. Various clubs have experienced it in the past, with only eight of the 50 all-time sides failing to do so - the six ever-presents, alongside Brighton and Brentford who haven't been relegated in their Premier League spells.

But whilst some teams were expected to go down, a few teams experiencing the drop raised eyebrows up and down England. At least one of Leicester or Everton will drop, which would be insane to process. Yet similar scenarios have happened before - and GiveMeSport talks you through the five biggest relegation shocks in Premier League history.

6 West Ham - 2002/03

Despite boasting one of the best squads in the Premier League at the time, West Ham suffered a surprise relegation.

Upcoming talents such as Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe, Glen Johnson and Joe Cole - the latter captaining the Irons despite being just 21 years of age - played alongside experienced pros including David James, Nigel Winterburn, Les Ferdinand and the enigmatic Paolo Di Canio.

But despite registering 42 points, which remains the highest points total of any relegated side, the Hammers perished - taking two years to reclaim their Premier League spot.

5 Newcastle United - 2008/09

The Magpies were a side that never really looked like they'd ever go down, simply due to their Premier League prestige.

Having recorded a fifth-placed finish just five years prior, a slight wobble up and down the table saw Newcastle finish 13th in 2006/07, and 12th in 2007/08. There was little to suggest they’d go down, even with the sales of James Milner and Emre.

But a catastrophic season, which saw three permanent managers alongside Chris Hughton’s two interim spells, had Newcastle battling the drop on the final day with legend Alan Shearer as manager. A 1-0 loss to Aston Villa on the final day of the season - with a point able to keep them up - shocked the football world.

4 Blackburn Rovers - 2011/12

Blackburn Rovers had won the league in 1995, with Shearer and Chris Sutton forming a deadly strike duo to pip Manchester United to the title. Though they suffered relegation in 1999, an almost immediate promotion in 2001 saw them embark on a series of top-half finishes. Three top-seven finishes across the 2000s saw them cement themselves as an established Premier League outfit, but the 2011-12 season was to be the last time they played in the top-flight to date.

The Venky group took over the season prior, sacking Sam Allardyce despite being 13th in the table - and with the inexperienced Steve Kean his replacement, they suffered a horror show.

Just three points in their final nine games of the 2011-12 season consigned them to relegation again - albeit this time, they didn’t have the squad to bring them back up. A general sense of gross mismanagement throughout.

3 Sheffield United - 2006/07

Despite not boasting a squad as strong as the other candidates on this list, Sheffield United can feel aggrieved in the manner that they were relegated.

Needing to draw against Wigan Athletic on the final day of the season and failing, their fate was in the hands of Manchester United - though the champions lost at home to West Ham, with Carlos Tevez scoring the winner for the Hammers.

Having scored seven goals in his final ten games, the Argentine's transfer was later ruled to be illegal as agent Kia Joorabchian was involved in third-party ownership - a deal prohibited in the Premier League. They recovered £20million in compensation damages from the Irons (via The Guardian), but had Tevez's transfer not gone through with the correct checks, they would likely have survived.

2 Queens Park Rangers - 2012/13

QPR surprised everybody in the summer transfer window of 2012 by signing a plethora of seasoned professionals who had won everything there is to win in football.

Jose Bosingwa signed having won the Champions League the season before, Julio Cesar joined from Inter Milan having won the Champions League two years before, and Park Ji-sung upped sticks to join from Manchester United. Other experienced pros, such as Esteban Granero, Robert Green, Ryan Nelson and Fabio da Silva moved to Loftus Road - it was like a real-life game of Football Manager.

But to everyone’s surprise, QPR failed to kick on from their previous season where they stayed up on the final day, and with just four wins in the league, were relegated with a miserable 25 points.

1 Leicester City - 2022/23

Almost nobody, even the most pessimistic Leicester City fan, will have predicted the Foxes to go down at the start of the season. After embarking on a magical journey down the years which sprung to life following their Premier League title win back in 2015/16, the Foxes have since seen five top-half finishes from six seasons, which included three European tours and a Champions League quarter-final.

But with the loss of key men such as Kasper Schmeichel and Wesley Fofana last summer, the Leicester board failed to properly invest the money, instead signing blunder-laden Wout Faes from Reims as Fofana's replacement, with no attacking talent joining the club.

It was a catalogue of errors ever since at the King Power Stadium. A combined 11 goals from the striking trio of Jamie Vardy, Patson Daka and Kelechi Iheanacho began to show their problems up front, a loss of form in the midfield ranks was apparent, and a mismatch defence guarding an unconvincing Danny Ward - the Foxes were always going to struggle.

The joint-third worst defence in the division, alongside the second-most losses in the league, saw them perish on the final day after Everton beat Bournemouth to survive. That 2015/16 Premier League title seems a long, long way away.