How long can we go without winning the league before it gets worrying? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

By Walter Broeckx

You know the Arsenal hasn’t won anything in X years mantra that the media and some desperate fans use every day to paint us as rubbish. And thanks to a remark of a reader on Untold I wondered: if you take a look at the history of a club how long does it take before a spell without trophies becomes worrying?

So I took out my calculator and started calculating. I started with seeing how old a club is. Because in every club you have good times and bad times. But if you want to know if a club is important you don’t just pick the good times or the bad times to make up your mind. No you should take the whole history of a club to measure how things are going for the moment.

And I do feel this to be very important. Because real supporters are there when we win but they are even more there when we don’t win. We enjoy the good times but we also try to survive the bad times. And you just cannot turn your back when things are going not that well and then come back when the tide has changed. No you are in it for every day, month, season, year or you are not. I like to be in it that way.

But as a starting date I had to take 1889 as this was the first year according to Wikipedia at least that there was an English league champion. And then I did the same thing for the Fa cup. But as the FA cup has a longer history than the league based on different numbers. I only took the teams who are currently in the PL and left out the clubs that never won anything like Wigan, Blackpool and some others…

So when you take in account the whole history is there a certain moaning point from when the fans really can moan about the lack of silverware? Is there a certain mantra point from when the media can really talk about ‘having won nothing for X years’ and for which clubs is this the case? It’s all below if you carry on reading.

Club	Years	League	Avg Years	Last title	Moaning point
Liverpool	121	18	6,72	1990	1997
Man Utd	121	18	6,72	2009	2015
Arsenal	121	13	9,31	2004	2013
Everton	121	9	13,44	1987	2000
Aston Villa	121	7	17,29	1981	1998
Sunderland	121	6	20,17	1936	1956
Chelsea	104	4	26,00	2010	2036
Newcastle	121	4	30,25	1927	1957
Blackburn	121	3	40,33	1995	2035
Wolves	121	3	40,33	1959	1999
Man City	121	2	60,50	1968	2028
Tottenham	121	2	60,50	1961	2021
WBA	121	1	121,00	1920	2041

So if you take the whole history of the PL/First Division we have won a title every 9 or 10 season. So as our last title is from 2004 and the next should be won at last in 2013 to keep up with our overall history record. So if we haven’t won the league again from 2013-2014 fans can become a bit worried. But before that we are just doing things in how we always have been doing things.

In fact there are other teams who are long overdue (I have put them in bold) when it comes to winning titles.

Liverpool is the most clear example as they should have won a title in 1997 to keep up with their own history. But do you hear the media and the pundits telling us that they haven’t won the league in the last 20 years?

Aston Villa should have won a title in 1998 but failed. So it’s been 30 years for them without a title. Everton also is some 11 years overdue to win a title.

Former great clubs like Newcastle and Sunderland should have won a title back in the 1950s  to keep up with their history record. And Wolves also should have won a title at the end of last century to keep up with their own club records.

So in fact the media and our own supporters should leave us alone on the ‘haven’t won anything for X years’. Because if we look at our history and our honours we are still well in our usual way of doing things.

What this also shows is that in football you have periods in which teams can be great and then they fade away. Or clubs who haven’t been doing well in the past become better. Chelsea are an example of this. Won precious little until the Russians came along with their billions. But when the Russian will be gone their will be nothing left to hang on except some memories of winning a few titles thanks to his money.

Live goes in cycles. Football is no exception to this. Just enjoy the good times when they are there and stick to the team when we don’t get what we want.

I will do the same thing for the FA cup in a next article.

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You might like to know that on the Arsenal history site we are tracing the work of Herbert Chapman in his attempt to win the league – which was not as straightforward as some fans today like to think.  The story begins here… The failures of Herbert Chapman: season one

There’s also the time when Arsenal had won nothing and were never looking likely to.  In fact we went bust and were taken over by Fulham.  The story is in “Making the Arsenal”