Spurs suffer from nervous nineties: who has topped Premier League for longest without ever winning it?
Ange Postecoglou copied all his predecessors up to Andre Villas-Boas in taking Spurs to the top of the Premier League, but the Aussie couldn’t hold on for the 100.
Spurs have spent the fifth-most nights top of the Premier League of all the sides who have never won it. Ange Postecoglou’s boys could not hold on for nearly long enough to catch Norwich.
Below are the non-champions who have led the Premier League table for the longest, with the current top-flight sides and their total number of evenings at the summit thrown in for good measure/more engagement time.
Bournemouth, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Luton, Sheffield United and Wolves (0 nights)
Pathetic, each of you. Completely and utterly embarrassing. Especially Bournemouth for trying to AFC their way to the top of the table every time they fancy a Premier League summer. Shameful.
Brentford (1 night)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 13, 2021
And what a night. It was on their first trip to a bus stop in Hounslow when Arsenal were like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Sergi Canos stunned the Gunners with the first Premier League goal in Brentford’s history, before Mads Bech Sorensen’s long throw set up Christian Norgaard to score.
Gary Neville reckoned a “soft” Arsenal were “messed around” and “bullied” by Brentford, who marked their arrival on the scene with a bang in a glorious Friday night season opener.
READ MORE: Arsenal leave Neville confused as they give him ‘worst feeling’
I live about 3 miles from @BrentfordFC and I think I heard the roar for Canós’ goal. The club’s first ever Premier League goal.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) August 13, 2021
Nottingham Forest (1 night)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 30, 1994
Finishing third as a promoted side is one of those Premier League records which will never be broken, fortified by a glass ceiling installed by the elite which requires years of meticulous planning and heaps of good fortune to even have a hope of cracking.
Nottingham Forest’s tilt at history came long before panicky executives started to ring-fence the peak of the pyramid. After being relegated in the inaugural Premier League season, Frank Clark’s side immediately returned as runners-up to Crystal Palace in the First Division and quickly set about putting things right.
An 11-game unbeaten start included a home draw against reigning champions Manchester United but it was after their fourth match, a 2-1 win over Everton at Goodison Park – imagine the boos – that Forest topped the pile.
It was for but a single day as Newcastle soon leapfrogged them by beating West Ham, meaning Forest have twice as many European Cups as they do total days as Premier League leaders.
Fulham (6 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 21, 2012
Twice the Cottagers have led the Premier League table, the second instance coming a decade after the first – both happening in August.
Jean Tigana inspired Fulham to a 4-1 win over Bolton to kickstart their second season back in the top flight in 2002, while they stayed there a little longer after a 5-0 thrashing of Norwich 10 years later.
Far from thrilled with the achievement in the latter case, Martin Jol spent much of his post-match reaction criticising his own club’s fans for chanting negatively about wantaway Clint Dempsey. All they wanted to know was whether the American was watching the team top of the Premier League while preparing to leave them for Liverpool, who were second from bottom after being humbled by West Brom. Dempsey of course actually left for Spurs, who were 14th after defeat to Newcastle.
Brighton (7 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 25, 2023
It feels like only two months ago that Brighton were top of the Premier League, back when Roberto De Zerbi deemed it a contractual obligation to ensure games finished 4-1 or 3-1 to either side. Now the boring sod settles for the odd 6-1 snoozefest or humdrum 2-2. No wonder the Seagulls are languishing in sixth.
West Ham (8 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 26, 2023
Back before their brief sleepover at the top after drawing with Bournemouth, beating Chelsea and vanquishing Brighton at the start of this season, West Ham spent just under week as leaders at the beginning of the 2021/22 campaign. David Moyes scaled the mountain for a handful of nights in the mid-2000s with Everton but has stayed there longer as Hammers manager.
The only other time West Ham were top of the Premier League was similarly fleeting: one Tuesday night in August 2006, when their win over Charlton and draw with Watford counted for an awful lot at a time when almost everyone else had played just once.
Everton (38 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – October 30, 2020
It’s faintly ludicrous for ever-presents who have at various points been quite good, but Everton had only been top of the Premier League table for eight nights of the competition’s first 28 campaigns. After sitting at the summit for barely a week in nearly three decades, they decadently took top spot for almost the whole of October 2020 in what really did look for an agonisingly brief moment like it could be a genuine and joyous tilt at something extraordinary. Carlo Ancelotti, James Rodriguez and friends were unstoppable in that lockdown season right up until the point they really weren’t. They won one of their next seven games immediately after ascending the summit and have not been close to returning since.
Tottenham (99 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – November 3, 2023
The last permanent Tottenham manager who failed to take the club to the top of the Premier League for at least one passionate but ultimately disappointing night was Andre Villas-Boas. Perhaps Neil Ashton was right all along.
Mauricio Pochettino constantly flirted with top spot but only actually sealed the deal early in his first season. Jose Mourinho reached his full potential by dragging Spurs top for about a month in the winter of The Lockdown Season before being sacked the following April. Nuno Espirito Santo cleverly timed a trio of 1-0 wins for the build-up to the international break of September 2021, ensuring a solid fortnight of unconvincing but entirely necessary title talk. Then Antonio Conte spent the opening day of the 2022/23 season looking down on everyone else after thrashing Southampton at home.
The Nuno Weeks were particularly impressive as Spurs combined sitting top with Arsenal being bottom, back when Mikel Arteta was on the brink and randomly changing his goalkeepers mid-season. Remember when the cameras cut to Bernd Leno after every Aaron Ramsdale save? A glorious time that never existed for a reason.
Ange Postecoglou wisely channelled the spirit of the most recent of those born-winner managers to actually win anything – that’s 2023 Saudi Professional League champion and the since sacked Nuno Espirito Santo, to you – in taking Spurs top just before everyone sodded off to play for their countries in October, guaranteeing an extended period in the lead. The Australian was crowned Manager of the Month at each of his first three attempts on these shores, mate. But he could not quite drag that form into November as Spurs fell a single day short of finally completing a century of nights atop the Premier League. There is probably an overused six-letter word for that.
Norwich (129 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – March 19, 1993
The first club to end a day top of the Premier League table courtesy of anything other than alphabetical order was Mike Walker’s Norwich City. Tipped by many as relegation candidates in 1992, the Canaries stunned Arsenal to win 4-2 on the inaugural league’s opening day. With Coventry beating Middlesbrough, Leeds overcoming Wimbledon and Sheffield United shocking Manchester United all by one goal, Norwich climbed straight to the summit.
They were expected to fall quickly and sharply, yet did no such thing. Chelsea were beaten next at Carrow Road as Norwich proceeded to win 12 of their first 18 league games, ending the calendar year top with a goal difference of zero and a three-point gap over Manchester United and Aston Villa in second and third place respectively.
Both sides leapfrogged Norwich by the first game of 1993, and although they clawed back their advantage by the end of the month with consecutive wins over Crystal Palace and Everton, United would soon assert their dominance.
The Canaries had flown so close to the sun, but have been locked in their cages since.
Leeds (159 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – January 11, 2002
One of the best teams never to win a trophy came ever so close in those halcyon days under David O’Leary. Leeds never finished lower than 5th from 1997/98 to 2001/02, reaching the FA Cup quarter-final and two European semi-finals in that time. They famously ended the millennium as the Premier League leaders, sitting one point clear of Manchester United as the year 2000 beckoned.
Leeds had been top even before O’Leary’s appointment in 1998. Their first spell on the throne was brief, with three straight wins to open the season under Howard Wilkinson in 1995/96 seeing them go top for just over a week. They then went top for a full day after beating Southampton in O’Leary’s fourth game in charge. Marcelo Bielsa sat on plenty of buckets, but never atop the Premier League. The big fraud.
Aston Villa (162 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 13, 1999
The aforementioned tussle with Norwich gave Aston Villa an unlikely taste of a Premier League title race that managed to satisfy them throughout the years. The Villans topped the table after an opening-day thrashing of QPR in August 1993, ended 1998 with a two-point gap over second-placed Chelsea, then climbed to first again in late 1999, when they opened that season with victories over Newcastle and Everton. But John Gregory could not quite keep that pace and they soon fell away. Villa have been as high as second in 2014 and third in 2015 since without ever going top this century.
Newcastle (367 nights)
Last night top of the Premier League – August 18, 2023
It is almost impressive to spend a year and two days at the top of the Premier League without ever actually winning it. Newcastle have been Premier League leaders for longer than two former champions (Blackburn, 238 nights, and Leicester, 188 nights), while Liverpool were trailing in the Magpies’ wake well into Jurgen Klopp’s managerial reign. Newcastle are sixth in the all-time rankings behind the Reds, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United.
The 1990s accounts for most of Newcastle’s time at the front of the pack, but the baton was gamely picked up by Sir Bobby Robson and even Sam Allardyce at the start of the 2007/08 season. A 3-1 opening-day win over Bolton put them top for two days then, a position they would not reprise until hammering Aston Villa 5-1 to kick off this campaign – before losing three on the bounce.
Alexander Isak celebrates scoring for Newcastle United.