What are the longest unbeaten and winless starts to a Premier League season?
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North London rivals Tottenham and Arsenal still have unbeaten records after 10 matches in the 2023-24 Premier League season, while bottom-of-the-table Sheffield United are yet to register their first win.
To put these early runs of form into context, we have browsed the history books to highlight the longest unbeaten Premier League starts and winless streaks, and looked at how those teams fared across the rest of the campaign.
What are the longest unbeaten Premier League starts and winless runs?
Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal are looking to follow in the footsteps of Arsene Wenger’s ‘Invincibles’, who went an entire season unbeaten in 2003-04.
The current crop have an identical record to Wenger’s side at this stage of the campaign, with seven wins and three draws from their first 10 matches.
Four other teams have played out more than half a season without losing a match, with Liverpool doing so twice under Jurgen Klopp, Manchester United once under Sir Alex Ferguson, and Manchester City once under Pep Guardiola.
United went unbeaten in their first 24 matches in 2010-11, before City racked up 22 games without defeat in 2017-18.
In response to City’s brilliance, Liverpool put together a 20-game run at the start of 2018-19 but still missed out on the title to Guardiola’s men. However, Klopp’s side overhauled their rivals in the following campaign (2019-20), thanks largely to a 27-game unbeaten streak – the longest unbeaten Premier League start since the aforementioned ‘Invincibles’.
Tottenham and Arsenal are some way off those heights, but their early form bodes well for a title challenge regardless. Of the previous 24 teams to go unbeaten in the first 10 games of a Premier League season, 18 finished in the top four, with nine having gone on to win the title.
The omens are less promising for winless Sheffield United, who are the 18th side to fail to register a victory in their opening 10 fixtures. Twelve of the previous 17 went on to be relegated.
The Blades are on course to break their own record for the longest winless run at the start of a Premier League campaign, set just three years ago when Chris Wilder’s side went 17 games without a win on their way to finishing bottom of the table.
That said, Newcastle’s revival in the subsequent season – when they failed to win any of their first 14 games before going on to finish 11th – suggests that all hope is not lost.
How important are the first 10 matches of the season?
With 10 matches representing more than a quarter of the campaign, history suggests that a team’s performance up to now is a reasonable predictor of where they might finish.
Only one of the previous 31 title winners had suffered more than two defeats at this stage – that was Manchester City in 2013-14.
Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of teams who were either unbeaten or had suffered a solitary defeat went on to finish in the top four, implying that Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool are well set for Champions League football next season.
In contrast, Manchester United face a monumental task if they are to repeat their top-four finish from last season. Erik ten Hag’s men have lost five of their first 10 games, with only one team in Premier League history having recovered from the same position to qualify for the Champions League.
That was Spurs in 2021-22, who climbed the table after replacing Nuno Espirito Santo with Antonio Conte.
At the foot of the table, teams with just one win from 10 games – Bournemouth, Luton and Burnley – have a 50 per cent chance of survival, based on Premier League results from previous seasons.
This improves to 73 per cent, 88 per cent and 95 per cent for sides with two, three and four victories respectively.
Currently sat on two wins, Nottingham Forest could yet be sucked into a relegation battle, with two of the last season’s bottom three – Leeds and Southampton – having picked up the same number of victories in their first 10 matches.
Which managers have recorded the longest unbeaten and winless starts to their careers?
Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has enjoyed a stellar start to his Premier League career, with eight wins and two draws providing Spurs fans with reason to dream of an unlikely title challenge.
His current unbeaten run is the joint-third longest of any manager new to the English top flight, tied with former Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel.
The two managers in his sights are Frank Clark, who went 11 games unbeaten with Nottingham Forest in 1994-95, and Maurizio Sarri, who guided Chelsea to eight wins and four draws in his first 12 matches in 2018-19.
Meanwhile, Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola has endured a tough start despite registering his first win in his 10th match – a 2-1 success against Burnley.
Only nine managers have posted longer winless runs at the start of their Premier League careers, with the record being jointly held by Mick McCarthy and John Gorman at 15 matches.
Gorman’s run came in his time as Swindon manager in 1993-94, while McCarthy lost nine games in a row after taking over from Howard Wilkinson as Sunderland boss in 2002-03, before failing to win a further six matches on the Black Cats’ return to the top flight in 2005-06.
Remarkably, former Norwich manager John Deehan features on both lists, with his side having drawn seven consecutive matches after he took the reins in January 1994, before losing a further two in a nine-game winless run.
All odds and markets correct as of date of publication
