Ranking remaining Premier League trophy droughts by ridiculousness after Arsenal and Villa glory

 We might well be about to enter an Era of Arsenal Dominance. What we’re definitely and unmistakably already in is a less catchy Era of Ending Trophy Droughts.

Arsenal’s drought may only have extended to six years before the enormous cathartic release of Tuesday night’s title-winning celebrations, but it was still a very ridiculous amount of time for this particular team to have gone potless. And London Bussing their way into view just 24 hours later came Aston Villa to end a 30-year wait for major honours with a thumpingly impressive win over Freiburg in the Europa League final.

This all comes on the back of last season when Newcastle and Spurs both ended truly and undeniably absurd trophy droughts and Crystal Palace got their hands on a major piece of silverware for the very first time.

And you know how our minds work by now. That means we have literally no choice but to set about ranking the current most conspicuous ongoing trophy droughts among Premier League clubs. And obviously we’re ranking them entirely subjectively by ridiculousness rather than on anything as mundane or useless as ‘time’. You know what we’re like.

Few points of order. For our purposes here, ‘major trophy’ is defined as any of the three main domestic pots and their predecessors, or any of the major European trophies, current or defunct. Your Champions Leagues, your Cup Winners’ Cups, your Europas and UEFA Cups, The Conference Leagues of this world. And the drought length is measured from the first point it could conceivably end for any of these teams – i.e. next year.

A non-exhaustive list of things that don’t count: one-off Community Shield types, any league title below the first tier, play-offs of any kind, the Zenith Data Systems Cup, God rest its soul, and the equally lost and lamented Intertoto Cup. That kind of thing. Okay?

Any team that has won something in the last five years is not considered to currently be experiencing drought conditions. Also, just so we’re not here all day, we’ve only included teams whose drought dates back to actually winning something rather than to the very beginning of their history.

There’s a philosophical element at play here; is it truly a drought if it’s just all you’ve ever known? But mainly we can’t be arsed. With all due respect to Bournemouth, Brighton, Fulham and Brentford, ain’t nobody got time for that.

That leaves the following pot-dodgers.

6) Nottingham Forest – 37 years

The last trophy: 1990 League Cup

And if you want to know just how Olden Times Football 1990 really was, Forest retained the trophy by beating Oldham in the final after knocking out Coventry in the semis.

The near misses:

Forest reached the FA Cup final the following year, and it is still not advised to mention Paul Gascoigne’s name in their fans’ presence, before once again reaching the League Cup final – by now in its much-loved Rumbelows era – in 1992.

Then for a long time, there was very little. Unless you count the Zenith Data Systems glory of that same year, which you definitely shouldn’t and we certainly won’t.

Did reach two quarter-finals in 1996, in the FA Cup and UEFA Cup, but really you have to wait all the way until their 2022 return to the Premier League for any real sniff of a major trophy. They’ve been to the semi-finals of both domestic cups and now the Europa League since their return to the top flight.

Could it end next season?

Forest have about them the distinct whiff of a cup run if they can position themselves suitably in the league not to have to concentrate all efforts on that. Either by chasing the Champions League or fretting about relegation. That second-leg effort in the Europa League against Villa may well prove a source of significant ruing for a significant period of time yet.

5) Wolves – 47 years

The last trophy: 1980 League Cup

Andy Gray scored the only goal as Wolves stunned the reigning – and soon-to-be-two-time – European champions Nottingham Forest at Wembley, with the win allowing Wolves captain Emlyn Hughes to collect one of the few medals missing from his personal collection after all his success with Liverpool in the 1970s.

The near misses:

Reached the 1981 FA Cup semi-final, losing out after a replay against eventual winners Spurs, but Wolves were about to embark on a precipitous tumble through the leagues that would take from the first division to the fourth by 1986.

Not until 2003 would they return to a very different world of top-flight football in England, although they did reach the 1998 FA Cup semi-finals as a second-tier side.

Reached the last four again in 2018/19 in a very successful first season back after another spell outside the top flight that even involved a short stay in League One. A lofty seventh-placed finish in the Premier League got them into the Europa League, where they would reach the quarter-finals.

And there have been further quarter-final appearances more recently in both domestic cups. But nothing you’d call a particularly near miss.