Our longest winless runs - which was the worst?

[nicksufc]

So the longest winless run in the club's history is finally over. But was it actually worse than our other extended winless runs? Let's take a dive into our glorious history...

2020 - 2021 (20 games)
Running from the final three matches of the 2019/20 to the first 17 of this season. No real thrashings, however. Standout Moments of Shitness:
Southampton 3-0 Blades
Palace 2-0 Blades
Blades 0-1 Everton

1975 - 1976 (19 games)
Got our first win of the season against Burnley in our 9th game (23 Sep 1975) and then didn't win again until 14th Feb 1976 (2-1 vs Villa). I wasn't alive at this point, so maybe someone can elaborate, but these look like our Standout Moments of Shitness:
Wolves 5-1 Blades
Villa 5-1 Blades
Blades 1-4 Man U

1990 (16 games)
Our first win of the season came at the 17th attempt - 3-2 vs Forest on 22 Dec 1990. As many will know, we miraculously finished mid table this season. Standout Moments of Shitness:
Spurs 4-0 Blades
Norwich 3-0 Blades
Blades 0-2 Sunderland

2010 - 2011 (14 matches)
The Mickey Adams season. This run essentially relegated us from the Championship. Standout Moments of Shitness:
Ipswich 3-0 Blades (+ red cards for Kozluk and Williamson)
Scunthorpe 3-2 Blades (we were two goals up after 7 minutes)
Blades 0-1 Derby (they were 9 games winless themselves)

 

[Gimli]

Went for 2010-11 as it was utterly hopeless. You could argue that this season has been the same but at least we’ve been in games, and it’s a higher standard.
Also wasn’t old enough to remember the 90 one and wasn’t alive for the first one.

 

[oldblade]

We also lost 5-0 at Spurs during that 1975-6 season, albeit that defeat came a few games after the win against Villa. But it was at the end of a sequence of 4 defeats.

Our closing 6 game sequence of 4 wins 1 draw and only 1 defeat seemed like something out of a parallel universe! It seemed that as soon as relegation was confirmed a huge weight was lifted from the side and they started to play without fear.

As a whole it was a dismal season, but there were still one or two bright spots. In that closing run we beat Leeds and pretty much finished any faint lingering hopes they had of winning the league. And during that 19 game winless run we still managed to draw at home with (eventual champions) Liverpool. That was one of 6 draws during that run.

 

[Barney Rubble]

I thought 75-76 was the worst, given the previous season had finished on a high, but poor recruitment cost us and we were poor from the off, fairly similar to this season really.

2010/11 I thought we were in real trouble after Morgan got injured and apart from that spell when Andy Reid came in didn't really change my view. To stay up we needed better investment in the Jan transfer window & Adams was barrel scraping so I wasn't surprised at that bad run.

1990 Every time I saw us play in that run we seemed to be really unlucky. I kept coming away thinking that our performances deserved more than we were getting. I wasn't surprised when we started to get better results. All those Basset premiership years were the same, slow but unlucky starts. Well, until the season we got relegated. That year, we really did deserve the results we got.

 

[Revolution]

Just for context:

2020-21: we drew 2 and lost 18, and lost a league cup tie on pens
2010-11: we drew 4 and lost 10, and lost an FA Cup tie
1990-1: we drew 4 and lost 12, and won 2 league cup ties (winning 3 games in total) and lost one
1975-6: we drew 6 and lost 13, and lost an FA Cup tie

The most recent one is the worst for me. Everything that could have gone wrong has done, there is plenty of blame to go around players and manager, the off pitch environment is miserable, and aside from the Brighton game (ok, the Leeds game too maybe) I think it's arguable that we did not deserve to win any of those games. We've only been "in" the other games in the sense that there was at times a chance we'd draw. The team is perfectly built to lose 1-0.

2010-11 was a poor season in any event and had a root cause - Kevin McCabe. 1990-1 was upsetting at times (Sunderland home) but having never seen the top flight before there was still some enjoyment to be had and I had no expectations, and we did win in the league cup - beating Everton in the third round was fun. I don't remember 1975-6 but we lost 5 less games than this time around, although I know there are a lot of parallels with that season.

 

[Pigsareblue]

If we stay up which is a 5 maybe 10 percent chance in my opinion nobody will talk about our winless run and they will talk about the greatest escape in history

 

[nicksufc]

The most recent one is the worst for me. Everything that could have gone wrong has done, there is plenty of blame to go around players and manager, the off pitch environment is miserable, and aside from the Brighton game (ok, the Leeds game too maybe) I think it's arguable that we did not deserve to win any of those games. We've only been "in" the other games in the sense that there was at times a chance we'd draw. The team is perfectly built to lose 1-0.

What about the West Brom game? Also, against Fulham we could have been out of sight before halftime.

Could never be worse than 2010/11 for me, considering that was in the 2nd tier as well. All I remember from that season is us ending every game with about 5 strikers on the pitch, desperately chasing a goal without any plan whatsoever.

 

[NuddysGloves]

Went for 2010-11 as it was utterly hopeless. You could argue that this season has been the same but at least we’ve been in games, and it’s a higher standard.
Also wasn’t old enough to remember the 90 one and wasn’t alive for the first one.

I went for the same for the exact same reasons!

 

[Geordie Blade]

1990-1: we drew 4 and lost 12, and won 2 league cup ties (winning 3 games in total) and lost one

We also bizarrely hammered Oldham 7-2 (after going 0-2 down) in the Zenith Data Systems Cup.

The biggest difference between 1990's run and this season's is that, this season, we know that we are better than this. In 1990, there was a definite sense of 'maybe the step up to the top flight is just too much for us'. For the reasons you said, I think that makes this season's run feel worse.

 

[Swinton Blade]

Went for 2010/11, only positive from the run of 14 games was coming back from 2 nil down against Donny, albeit I think they were 10 men down if I remember rightly.

Isn't it weird how that season we lost Morgan through injury and this season we lost O'Connell, both season could have been different if they were available.

 

[oldblade]

We also bizarrely hammered Oldham 7-2 (after going 0-2 down) in the Zenith Data Systems Cup.

The biggest difference between 1990's run and this season's is that, this season, we know that we are better than this. In 1990, there was a definite sense of 'maybe the step up to the top flight is just too much for us'. For the reasons you said, I think that makes this season's run feel worse.

Added to that, in terms of results so far, this season really has been worse.

In 1990-1 we drew 4 of the first 16 league games and then won games 17 and 18. We also beat Northampton (twice) and Everton in the League cup and as you point out we destroyed Oldham in the Zenith data systems cup. So our record up to a similar stage of the season might not have been very good, but it was significantly better than the present season (so far).

However, I think the point you make about our expectations at that time is right. I think our expectations for this season were higher than what we expected back then.

That season shows us that we should never give up. After that first win against Forest the season seemed to turn around from a hopeless situation to one with genuine hope of survival very quickly. I think it was after the 4-1 win against Southampton that I became confident that we would survive. And that was only at the beginning of February. And yet only two months before that we lost 2-0 at home to Sunderland. From memory I think Beesley had a bit of a mare. He certainly provided a great assist for one of their goals and at that time I really thought we were out of our depth and down. I couldn't see us winning a league game all season. How wrong I was!

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

75-76 has lots of similarities with the season. Previous season we'd just missed European football, indeed with a couple of changed results could've been champions. The start was positive, but the season soon dropped into an inevitable relegation. It was an aged team, and that season was a result of poor recruitment for several seasons, culminating in the signing of Guthrie that season. This feels different in that the squad hasn't all come to the end together. 75-76 felt far worse than this, but maybe because I was so much younger and it was my first experience of relegation.