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Following Monday night’s humiliating 6-0 defeat by Arsenal there has been a lot of chatter asking if Sheffield United are the worst team in Premier League history? And the answer to that question is: Yes, no and maybe.
Obviously football did not start in 1992 but the Premier League did and it is a good enough place to draw a line in the sand and have a look at the past three and a bit decades.
Sheffield United’s recent home record is more frightening than a Stephen King novel – it reads 0-5, 0-5, 0-6 and it is that run of results that have prompted questions about where the Blades sit among the worst teams ever.
In the most simplistic terms Sheffield United have 13 points from their 27 games to date with three wins and four draws, but in 2007-08 Derby County managed just one win and eight draws all season as they ended the season with 11 points. So the fact that Sheffield United are two points better off with 11 games to play means by that metric they are not the worst team in Premier League history.
So what other metrics can they be judged by? Well goals conceded is the next logical one to look at.
The Swindon Town team in the second Premier League season (1993-94) hold the unenviable record of being the only side to concede a century of goals in a season – Chris Fairclough’s 90th minute goal for Leeds wrapped up a 5-0 win on the final day of the season and brought up the three figures.
But that was in the days of a 42 game Premier League season – surely Sheffield United can’t get close to that in a 38 game campaign? Well, think again as they have conceded 72 goals so far and are currently conceding at a rate of 2.67 goals per 90 minutes which has them on track to concede 101 goals by the end of this miserable season.
If that were to happen then they would have to be considered as certainly the worst defence in Premier League history.
Sometimes you don’t need to break any records to be considered a poor team, you can use the eye test and there have been some very abject sides in the Premier League over the years, Sunderland (2005-06 and 2002-03), Huddersfield (2018-19), Aston Villa (2015-16) are just some teams who have been very poor.
And then you have a side like Norwich who between 2018-19 to 2021-22 finished top of the Championship twice, only to follow it up both times by finishing bottom of the Premier League.
And Sheffield United are verging on similar territory.
Back in 2021, Sheffield United were relegated following a 1-0 defeat by Wolves on April 17.
At that point in the season they were on 14 points. Three wins in the final six games lifted them to a slightly more respectable 23 points, but that was still a poor season and a poor team who did not win their first game until January 12.
So the fact that Sheffield United were poor back then and have come back up a few season’s later and arguably been worse this time around make them candidates to be thought of as worse than both Derby and Swindon as neither of those sides returned to fail again.
Whatever happens in the remaining games of the season it has been a miserable season for the Blades and their fans and of course there are mitigating circumstances with two of last season’s best players – Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge being sold to Marseille and Burnley respectively close to the start of the season.
Sales like that meant the season was off to a bad start before a ball had even been kicked, time will tell how much worse it will get in the final months of the season.
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