Sometimes it's not enough to be relegated – hitting so few goals that you make the list of the lowest-scoring Premier League teams ever is real humiliation.
Norwich are about to feel the ignominy of the former once again, and they have just a couple of games left to avoid landing on the latter.
So far this season, the Canaries have bagged just 22 goals – a total that would see them at joint-fourth here, and would be their own worst Premier League goal return, failing to reach even the heady heights of the 2019/20 season, when they finished with 26 goals.
Finding another four goals from the last couple of weeks of the season might be a big ask for Dean Smith's side, though.
Before we start proper, let's rattle off some honourable mentions. Bradford City managed just the 30 strikes in 2000/01, with Leicester City, matching that tally in 2001/02 before QPR hit 30 in 2012/13. West Bromwich Albion (2002/03), Watford (2006/07) and Sunderland (2016/17) all scored 29 when they got relegated, with Birmingham City (2005/06), Middlesbrough (2008/09), Norwich (2013/14) and Burnley (2014/15) all missing out on this list with 28.
We start at the 27 club…
Lowest-scoring Premier League teams ever: =7. Aston Villa (2015/16): 27
Undoubtedly the most miserable season in Aston Villa's recent history, 2015/16 brought new depths for the former European Cup winners, punctuated by Jack Grealish partying, Remi Garde's failures and captain Joleon Lescott pocket-tweeting photos of his new car.
An unhappy campaign for Brummies, Villa's top scorer that season in the league was Jordan Ayew with a measly six strikes. Rudy Gestede was the only other player to hit over five, with Grealish and Gabriel Agbonlahor managing one a-piece.
=7. Middlesbrough (2016/17): 27
A second entry on the list already for a squad containing Adama Traore, the muscly Spaniard managed zero goals across both of the campaigns in question. Wolverhampton Wanderers are similarly shot-shy this season, too – with just 17 at the time of writing – and Adama only managing one goal all term.
Still, this wasn't just the oiled-up winger's fault. Big names like Viktor Fischer, Patrick Bamford and Alvaro Negredo were brought in to address Boro's faults in front of goal: Negredo managed an admirable nine and Bamford just the one, as Aitor Karanka led the side to relegation. The Wearsiders were actually not too awful defensively – but those six 1-0 losses cost them dearly in the fight for survival.
=6. Sunderland (2005/06): 26
Sunderland famously relied on the brilliant Kevin Phillips striking 30 goals on his lonesome when they were promoted to the Premier League in 1999. That's four more goals than the team managed collectively when they left the top flight in disgrace six years later.
Goals were equally shared out among the Black Cats, with Anthony Le Tallec (remember him?) top scoring with five. Dean Whitehead in midfield managed four, as the northeastern outfit spent 33 out of 38 matchdays nailed to the bottom of the Premier League. A campaign to forget.
=6. Norwich City (2019/20): 26
11.5% of Norwich's goals in 2019/20 came against Manchester City in one match. That early-season clash convinced many that Teemu Pukki and co. were on the right track for a healthy season – but things went down south pretty soon after.
Pukki scored 11, Todd Cantwell six and no one else in the squad managed more than one. The Canaries only scored in 16 games that season, a far cry from the previous season in the Championship, when Daniel Farke's side walked the league, netting 93 in the process.
4. Huddersfield Town (2018/19): 22
Huddersfield's sophomore season in the big time was depressing. Three wins all season, the Terriers managed just six points from December 1 onwards. Unsurprisingly, they finished bottom.
Top scorer, Karlan Grant, struck four times to win the club Golden Boot but joined 25 games into the doomed campaign.
3. Sunderland (2002/03): 21
The aforementioned Kevin Phillips still holds the record for most goals in a single season for an English player, with 30. He fired Sunderland into Europe in 2000, managed 113 in 208 for the club and sits 37th in the all-time scorers' list. But even he could only muster a meek six goals in 2002/03, as the Black Cats fell off a cliff-face into the second tier.
Tore Andre Flo, too, had 50 goals in four seasons for Chelsea but could only hit four league goals at Sunderland that season; Marcus Stewart reached 19 for Ipswich two seasons prior (and was the second-top scorer in the division) but scored just once for Sunderland in 2002/03. How a team of players who very clearly knew where the net is just totally forgot that year, we'll never know…
=1. Derby County (2007/08): 20
The poster-boys for Premier League poorness, Derby County's fabled 2007/08 yielded just one win and 11 points, as the Rams crashed out of the top tier in spectacular fashion.
Kenny Miller's four goals were enough to claim the top scorer spot that season. Only four times did Derby score two goals in a game – 22 times, they didn't score at all – as the hapless basement boys shipped 89 in the league. Dear, oh dear.
=1. Sheffield United (2020/21): 20
The first season that Sheffield United were back in the Premier League with Chris Wilder, they were wonderful: difficult to predict, even harder to defend against when the overlapping full-backs did their thing. They had 12 different scorers, that year.
The following season, the Blades' top scorer, David McGoldrick, managed two more goals than the previous season's, Oli McBurnie. But only McGoldrink, Billy Sharp and Jayden Bogle managed to score more than one goal. New record signing, Rhian Brewster, went all season without a single goal.
It's a curious drop but a lesson to everyone not to take goals for granted when you're in the Premier League. You never know when they might dry up…
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