All that’s left for Norwich is to avoid taking Derby’s unwanted title as the worst Prem team EVER
OPINION will always be divided on the question of the best-ever Premier League team.
Is it the Manchester City side of 2017-18, the only team to run up 100 points in a single season?
It could the 2019-20 Liverpool champions, who finished just one point shy of the 100-mark and wrapped up the title in record time with seven games to spare.
Arsenal’s 2003-04 Invincibles are the only team that has gone undefeated in an entire Premier League season, so perhaps it’s them.
There is a case to be made for Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea team of 2004-05, who kept a record 25 clean sheets and conceded a record-low 15 goals. They also secured a then-record 29 league victories to finish on 95 points.
And a nod should be given to the Manchester
United side of 1998-99. They won the league with a lower points total than others but also won the FA Cup and Champions League, and were the best team on the planet at the time. So many questions, so many factors and so many opinions.
But when it comes to the worst-ever Premier League team, the 2007-08 Derby County version wins that one hands down.
That season the Rams broke a host of records, including lowest points total since the three points for a win system was introduced (11) and worst goal difference ever (-69). They remain the only team to have been relegated from the Premier League in March and just the second in the post-war era in the top flight.
Nine games into that season the relegation writing was already on the wall. The Rams had five points, had scored five goals and conceded a whopping 22. They had won a game – a 1-0 victory over Newcastle – but it turned out to be their only win all season.
It has been inconceivable that a team would ever be as bad as that Derby side, until the current Norwich group came along and said, ‘Hold my beer!’
Nine games into the season, and following their 7-0 drubbing by Chelsea, Norwich remain winless and have just two points. They have managed to score only two goals and have conceded one more than Derby at 23.
At this rate they are on course to finish their campaign with eight points, eight goals and a goal difference of -89, which would shatter every unwanted record the 2007-08 Derby flops set. And in that lies Norwich’s season.
Relegation is guaranteed. All they have left is to be better than that Derby side and avoid being lumbered with the accolade of ‘worst Premier League team ever’.
Statistically, the secondworst side is Sunderland in 2005-06. Aiming to be nothing worse than that is what should motivate Norwich, the chance to have this nightmare season forgotten as opposed to renowned.