Tottenham has gotten off to a pretty fair start this season - making the most of their timely goals and playing miserly defense. While their North London neighbors have scored a whopping 29 goals so far this season, Spurs have scored only 1/6 that total (5). Whether Spurs can keep up their record of 3 wins on only 5 goals is debatable (for the record, just under 1/4 of the way through the season, they are on pace to score 24 goals on the year). So here are the trivia questions: What is the lowest goal total for a European qualifier (top-5 spot for simplicity's sake) in a (38 game) premiership season? What is the lowest goal total a non-relegated team has scored (in a 38 game season) in the Premiership? Considering that prevailing wisdom is that team defense has improved in the premiership, the results are fairly surprising . . . Here is a hint - Sutherland's miserable season in 02/03 saw the lowest number of goals scored by any team in (38 game) premiership history - a mere 21. Even with only five goals in nine games, Spurs have already matched the Mackems win total (3) from that season!
in the same season (2001/2002) Sunderland scored 29 and finnished 17th The season before thier record breaking season of lowest points total and lowest number of goals in premiership history
Newcastle scored 52 (5th in 03/04) Villa scored 52 (4th in 95/96) Arsenal scored 49 (5th in 95/96) Villa scored 47 (5th in 96/97) West Ham scored 46 (5th in 98/99) So you lose! From 95 onwards, couldnt be arsed to look at before then.
Didn't Swindon Town, do naff all in their one year of top flight football. Or am i showing my age because that was even before the Premiership?
Well, you're right and wrong. They've had more than one season in topflight football in their history. But their most recent one (1993/94) wasn't a particularly successful one. They came bottom of the then still 22-team Premiership, with 30 points and 100 goals against. They were relegated a full 13 points off safety. I went down for their game against Liverpool - it remains the only time I have ever been to Swindon. We did them 5-0, if memory serves. Porky Ruddock scored.
IIRC Swindon needed to concede less than 4 on the last day to avoid the humiliating 100 mark. Sadly for them it was 4-0. Poor old Fraser Digby, he was picking the ball out of the net pretty often that season.
A hundred times, in fact. Their final game in top flight football was a 5-0 home defeat by Leeds, according to premierleague.com.
I couldn't remember if he was an ever present. You are right about the result though. I just checked RSSSF.
--- interesting that Sunderland scored 8 goals in the first 8 games that season and were joint 5th at that point. Kevin Phillips scored 13, total.
Kudos to Boro_Lad. Not surprising that he would remember a lousy, but safe season by Sunderland. West Ham is indeed the lowest-scoring team to make the top five. Unless Tottenham has a bit of an offensive revival, they might challenge for one of these spots. Though with Robbie Keane AND Jermaine Defoe, it is hard to imagine them remaining such a low-scoring side all year. Chelsea could be making a run at the lowest-scoring Top-5 squad. Unless they keep playing Blackburn. Everton is another squad that could score few goals, but they are likely to fall out of the top five if they do stop scoring. Southampton is either going to look like the 00/01 edition of Sunderland or the 02/03 edition (yikes!). Their midfield is garbage.
I'm pretty sure that was there first season in the top flight, although not the first time they were 'promoted' to it (having been denied in the early 90s after winning the playoff final).
http://stats.football365.com/hist/overall/atdist.html agrees with yoy (although it's about three years out of date)