5 most toothless Premier League attacks of all time

Paul Lambert's Aston Villa have broken records this season. But we're not talking about the kind of records Premier League clubs want to be breaking. Instead, their achievements in the 2014/15 campaign to date make for miserable reading.It all stems from an alarming lack of goals. Following their 5-0 defeat to Arsenal at the end of January, Villa had gone an unbelievable 10 hours of top-flight football without scoring. After trudging off the pitch in their Emirates thrashing, the players will have seen the league table bear some ugly news - their goals for section read '11' - and that's after 23 games. Something is seriously wrong at Villa Park. Whether it's Christian Benteke's injury struggles, the fact that there's little to no creativity in the team, Tom Cleverley's presence ... whatever it is, something needs to change. It seems simple enough, but Villa need to start hitting the back of the net to shoot themselves up the table. With their struggles in mind, it begs the question - are Villa the worst we've ever seen in the Premier League? Will they continue in this vein? (If they do, they will be) And just who before them have struggled as badly as they are at the moment? Check through these slides to see the top five worst attacks in the history of the Premier League.

#5 Norwich City (28) 2013/14

Just to get this clear before we venture any further, there’s actually four teams in history who have ended a season with 28 goals. There’s one to follow, there’s the 2013/14 version of Norwich City and an incarnation each of Leeds United and Middlesbrough. If you’re wondering why the latter two don’t appear – well that’s because the two that do show boasted inferior goal difference. Football lists hey?

The Canaries were managed by Chris Hughton for most of the season before his sacking in April 2014 while his replacement Neil Adams couldn’t do enough to save them from relegation. Nevertheless, Norwich tried their best and infamously gave themselves a little too much to do before Hughton’s departure.

The timing was a little bizarre in terms of giving Adams four games to survive, and it’s even worse considering those four matches came against Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. Tough break.

Norwich are currently in the hunt to bounce back up to the Premier League at the first attempt, as they push for a place in the Championship play-offs. If they do manage to get back, they’ll need to find a man to depend upon more than Gary Hooper – who mustered just eight goals as the club’s top scorer.

#4 Middlesbrough (28) 200809

The other mystery club who ended with 28 goals in 38 games are Middlesbrough, back in the 2008/09 season.

Unsurprisingly, their inability to hit the net meant manager Gareth Southgate and his side found themselves condemned to England’s second tier. They could only take seven wins through the entire campaign and relied the most on Turkish attacker Sanli Tuncay, who hit precisely one-quarter of the team’s league goals total.

But that wasn’t enough and they fell to 19th place, three points away from safety. The Teessiders have yet to return to the Premier League since their drop though they are well placed in the Championship this season to have another bite of the prestigious Premier League cherry.

They’ve even recently defeated reigning Premier League Champions Manchester City in the FA Cup, a big old improvement on those hallowed days where Afonso Alves was trying and failing to lead the line.

#3 Sunderland (26) 2005/2006

Most will know that if you’re a side that contains the likes of Nyron Nosworthy, Jon Stead and Justin Hoyte in the Premier League, you’ll have a great chance... of failing.

Unfortunately for Sunderland that’s exactly how the 2005/06 season went down. A young and hungry Stead tried his best but wasn’t quite up to the challenge - he managed one goal all season - while his strike partners didn’t fare much better. Anthony Le Tallec ended the term as the team’s top scorer with a ‘massive’ four goals while the collection of Sunderland’s other five misfit forwards only managed six strikes between them.

They ended with their ‘goals for’ section of the Premier League table reading the number ‘26’, and unfortunately for them they only managed three wins and 15 points in total. Sunderland were well off the pace, managed 0.68 goals per game and failed to make any positive impression on the Premier League that year.

#2 Sunderland (21) 2002/2003

Oh look, it’s Sunderland again!

It’s a great effort from the Black Cats to appear twice on this list, isn’t it? But at least their poor 2005/06 total of 26 goals was a mighty old improvement on three seasons prior. Not even the great Kevin Phillips could shoot them up the table in the 02/03 season, as they finished rock bottom with only four wins to their name – and a huge 25 points away from safety after all 38 games had been completed.

Prior to the season starting, they’d lumped nearly £7 million on former Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo, and they also boasted of Manchester United forward David Bellion on their books. You know, the French winger who Sir Alex Ferguson for some reason had a worrying amount of faith in?

Nevertheless, Peter Reid, Howard Wilkinson and ‘Mr. Monotone’ himself Mick McCarthy combined could only scrape together a shocking 19 points. The fact that their points tally nearly beat their goals total over the season is a stark indicator of just how bad this side was.

*Oh and one other thing, this was the infamous season where Sunderland scored a majestic three own goals in one game.

#1 Derby County (20) 2007/2008

Derby County – the worst of the worst.

While they’re currently on course to be promoted back to the Premier League – for the first time since their fateful 2007/08 term – they could only score a miserable 20 goals in 38 games when they had their last taste of England’s top flight. That’s a humble record of 0.53 goals a game.

But bear in mind, this ratio is still better than Aston Villa’s after 23 games of the current season.

Way back then, Derby were also the victims of the heaviest defeat of a home team that season – having been thrashed 6-0 by, ironically, Aston Villa – and they had by far, the worst defence in the Premier League to boot, as they shipped 89 goals.

Whether they’d have scored more or not, Derby would have more than likely found themselves propping up the table. Not even the likes of Robert Earnshaw, Jon Macken, or £2 million January window signing Emanuel Villa (remember him?) could save them, and to round it all off they came away with a measly one win through the entire campaign. Shocker.