Which of the “big six” have won the most trophies in the last seven years?

By Bulldog Drummond

And so we approach the Community Shield, once known as the Charity Shield until the FA were found by the Charity Commission not to be keeping proper records and so were fined and forbidden from using the name “Charity Shield” again.  How much money actually went to charities – if any – year by year was never revealed either for the Charity Shield or its successor.

As a result quite what the “community” bit of the Community Shield means no one seems to know and the FA won’t reveal how much money they give to anyone else as a result of this event, although obviously with no crowd there this year the amount they’ll receive will be reduced.

Arsenal have won the Shield three times in the last ten years and are one of only three clubs who have won the Shield, or its predecessor ten or more times.  Top top three are Shield winners being…

• Manchester United (17 wins, four shared trophies – last win 2016)
• Arsenal (14 wins, one shared trophy – last win 2017)
• Liverpool (10 wins, five shared trophies – last win 2006)

Interestingly, FA Cup winners generally do quite well in the following season.  Here’s a list of the FA Cup finals from 2000/1 onwards, showing where the winner and loser of the cup final were in the league the next season.  Where there is no entry the club was not in the Premier League.

What we can see is that generally the winner of the FA Cup does better than the loser in the final, in the following season, which could bode well for Arsenal.

Season	Winner	Score	Loser	Next lge pos for winner	Next lge pos for loser
2001	Liverpool	2–1	Arsenal	2	1*
2002	Arsenal	2–0	Chelsea	2	4
2003	Arsenal	1–0	Southampton	1	12
2004	Manchester U	3–0	Millwall	3
2005	Arsenal	0–0	Manchester U	4	2
2006	Liverpool	3–3	West Ham U	3
2007	Chelsea	1–0	Manchester U	2	1
2008	Portsmouth	1–0	Cardiff City	14
2009	Chelsea	2–1	Everton	1	8
2010	Chelsea	1–0	Portsmouth	2
2011	Manchester City	1–0	Stoke City	1	14
2012	Chelsea	2–1	Liverpool	3	7
2013	Wigan Athletic	1–0	Manchester City		1
2014	Arsenal	3–2	Hull City	3
2015	Arsenal	4–0	Aston Villa	2	20
2016	Manchester U	2–1	Crystal Palace	3	14
2017	Arsenal	2–1	Chelsea	6	5
2018	Chelsea	1–0	Manchester U	5	2
2019	Manchester City	6–0	Watford	2	19
2020	Arsenal	2–1	Chelsea

So on that basis we can be looking forward to a good season, for only three times has the Cup winner not ended up in the top four the following season.  Although undoubtedly if that happens and we feel buoyed up by the that at the end of the season, only to be told “Fourth is not a trophy”.

Community Shield games don’t normally result in many goals, the norm being the winner getting between one and three, the loser getting between zero and two.  Here are the last ten years…

2010	Manchester United	3–1	Chelsea
2011	Manchester United	3–2	Manchester City
2012	Manchester City	3–2	Chelsea
2013	Manchester United	2–0	Wigan Athletic
2014	Arsenal	3–0	Manchester City
2015	Arsenal	1–0	Chelsea
2016	Manchester United	2–1	Leicester City
2017	Arsenal	1–1	Chelsea
2018	Manchester City	2–0	Chelsea
2019	Manchester City	1–1	Liverpool

But of course few people really remember too much about the Community Shield – which is exactly what the FA want in order to avoid anyone asking questions about where the money goes.  We are of course then straight onto the league games.

After the run in the Champions League from 1989 to 2014 Arsenal have since missed qualification for the Champs League by between one and 12 points with an improvement in goal difference of up to 13 (or an extra point) needed to get us into the top four.

Last season, turning six of our draws (out of the 14 drawn games) into wins, and through that scoring just eight goals, we would have been in the top four – even though our actual final position of 8th was the worst since 1995 when we finished 12th.

But that thought can be a bit misleading, because across time it is often 73 points that is needed to get fourth place, 17 points more than we got last season.

However what is often missed in all this is that in the last seven seasons we have won four major trophies (the FA Cup in each season) – plus one runners’ up position (in the Europa) if we want to throw that in as well.

Obviously I am not going to say that winning the FA Cup is as big a deal as winning the League, but it is still a damn sight better than some pretenders to trophies manage.  Here’s the comparison…

Liverpool during this time have won two trophies – and of course they are the trophies we would most love to win, (League and Champs League) but across those seven years it is still just two trophies.

Manchester City have won  the league three times times, the League Cup five times, and the FA Cup once.  That is not a bad target to aim for, especially if it can be done without bringing the wrath of football down on our heads and then escaping on a technicality of timing.

Manchester United have won the FA Cup once, the League Cup once and the Europa League once.

Chelsea have won the league twice, the FA Cup once, the League Cup once and the Europa League once.

Tottenham Hots have won…

Of course I would like us to be winning the League and the Europa this coming season, and another FA Cup would be nice too thus making a fourth double, but I think we can be fairly pleased that despite the massive chaos of remorseless media criticism, the endless negativity of AFTV and others, and three managers in three seasons, we still have picked up some bits of silver.

Here’s the seven year list of trophies won as a table:

• Manchester City: 9
• Chelsea: 5
• Arsenal: 4
• Manchester United: 3
• Liverpool: 2
• Tottenham Hots: 0

Time now therefore to push on a bit further.

• Those Arsenal matches without crowds and not shown on TV & 4 fantastic tales
• So that’s 50% of pre-season done, and those who looked seemed to think it ok
• What marks out a winning season? Revealing football’s complexity.