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EPL The summer of 1969 is perhaps more notable for humans walking on the moon, Woodstock and the Bryan Adams song than it is Crystal Palace’s 18-game unbeaten run under Bert Head that encompassed the London club being promoted to the top flight of English football for the first time. Yet even so, that streak without losing has never been eclipsed at any point in Palace’s history as a league club and for a team that had — until the FA Cup triumph last May — never won a major trophy, it remains one of their high points. Advertisement This, however, will change if Oliver Glasner’s side, who are tied with the record, avoid defeat against Dynamo Kyiv in the UEFA Conference League today (Thursday). Palace last lost a match on April 16 — 5-0 away at Newcastle United — and since then have gone 18 unbeaten across five competitions to move level with the team from 1969. How would it compare to the other current Premier League clubs’ record runs without defeat in all competitions? What is the longest an English side has ever gone without losing? And which team’s best streak came in the 19th century? Here, The Athletic dives into some footballing history. Firstly, here are the 20 Premier League clubs ordered by the longest unbeaten runs they have ever been on across all competitions, while playing in the top four divisions of English football. Liverpool, Chelsea, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Brighton & Hove Albion all have joint club-record runs without losing, so the most recent instance is the one shown in the above graphic. Nottingham Forest’s 40 games without defeat in 1978 under Brian Clough is the longest in English footballing history (not just among clubs currently in the country’s top division). Forest’s run encompassed the final 15 matches of the 1977-78 season, in which they won the both League Cup and the top flight for the first time (they have not won the latter since), and the opening 25 matches of the following campaign where, as well as playing in those two competitions again and winning the Charity Shield, they also competed in the European Cup for the first time. They finally lost on December 9, going down 2-0 to Liverpool at Anfield in the league. Five of their 40 unbeaten games had been against Bob Paisley’s Liverpool — the replayed League Cup final in March (0-0 and 1-0), the final league match of the 1977-78 season in May (0-0) and the two-legged first-round clash in the European Cup in September 1978 (2-0 and 0-0), the first instance of two English clubs meeting in the competition. Overall, Forest won 21 of those 40 games, drawing the other 19 for a win percentage of 52. 5. They went on to come second in the league (to Liverpool) in the spring of 1979, but retained the League Cup and won the European Cup by beating Swedish side Malmo in the final. Advertisement Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City fell five short of equalling this record in May 2024, with their defeat by Manchester United in the FA Cup final meaning their unbeaten streak ended at 35 games. This figure is not without debate, however. It includes the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid the previous month, in which City drew the game but lost the resulting penalty shootout. However, the Laws of the Game state that a team can only lose a match by scoring fewer goals than their opponent and that penalty shootouts are used as tiebreakers following drawn games. Therefore, the match must be seen as a draw. City won 29 of those 35 matches, eight more than Forest did, despite a total of five fewer games in the streak. Manchester United are next and, unsurprisingly, their record run without losing came under Alex Ferguson. It began with a 4-2 victory over Swindon Town on September 25, 1993, in the Premier League. The 34th and final match in the streak was a 4-1 win against Sheffield Wednesday on March 2, 1994, in the League Cup semi-final second leg. Mark Hughes scored a brace in both games. The run was ended by a 1-0 loss at home against Chelsea three days later, with Gavin Peacock scoring for the London club — just as he had in the season’s earlier league fixture at Stamford Bridge, which Chelsea also won 1-0. The defeat was the only time Manchester United were beaten at Old Trafford in any competition from November 1, 1992, to December 16, 1994 — one loss across 57 home matches. United fell one short of equalling this 34-game record in 1999, when they were beaten in the Charity Shield by Arsenal in August. Their previous match, the Champions League final against Bayern Munich, in which they had secured the first treble by an English club, was their 33rd game in a row without losing. Advertisement Arsenal’s record unbeaten run in all competitions of 28 games did not involve their ‘Invincibles’, who in 2003-04 became the first side to complete an English top-flight league campaign without losing since Preston North End in 1888-89. Instead, the mark was set in 2007, with the run starting in April of their first season at the Emirates Stadium. It was ended by Spanish side Sevilla in the Champions League in November of the following campaign. The longest Arsenal went unbeaten inside the ‘Invincible’ 2003-04 season in all competitions was a 20-match streak from late October to mid-January, with the run ended by Middlesbrough in the first leg of the two teams’ League Cup semi-final. Sunderland are the highest team on the list whose streak didn’t come while playing as a top-flight club. Their 26 games without losing in 1998 under Peter Reid came as a second-tier side and, unsurprisingly, helped them get promoted to the Premier League at the end of the 1998-99 campaign. The second match of the run was the play-off final, which concluded their 1997-98 season, with Sunderland drawing with Charlton Athletic before being defeated in the tie-breaking penalty shootout. Liverpool’s 25-game unbeaten run, which culminated in November 2021, tied their record from 1982, with both streaks ended by a single-goal margin in a league match the weekend after a home victory in the European Cup/Champions League. Ipswich Town spoiled the party in 1982, and West Ham United did so in 2021. Chelsea are another team who could only equal a previous record streak without losing, with their 3-1 loss to Wigan Athletic in September 2009 ending a 23-game unbeaten run and matching the mark set under Jose Mourinho in the second half of the 2006-07 season. That run in 2009 did, however, involve the agonising away-goal elimination to Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals following a 0-0 stalemate at Camp Nou and a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. Aston Villa are the only current Premier League club whose record streak without losing took place in the 19th century. The 22-game run lasted from January 16, 1897, to September 18 later that year and helped the Birmingham club do the double of league title and FA Cup in the spring — something that wouldn’t be achieved again until Tottenham Hotspur replicated it in 1960-61. This is by far the biggest gap between doubles in English football. The club were managed by George Ramsay, who won the English top flight six times as a head coach (all at Villa), with the last of those triumphs coming in the 1909-10 season. This total remained unsurpassed until 2001, when Ferguson won his seventh top-division title in the country. Advertisement Two other sides set their record runs before the Second World War, Burnley across 1920 and 1921 and West Ham over 1922 and 1923. West Ham’s invincibility being shattered by Barnsley in a second-tier league game resulted in a collapse in form which included defeat in the FA Cup final to Bolton Wanderers 12 days later in what was the first match ever played at Wembley and which remains the best-attended game in English club footballing history (officially 126, 047 but the true figure is likely more than double that). The shortest unbeaten runs by clubs currently in the Premier League are the 17-game streaks for Brentford and Brighton respectively. Brentford’s saw them get promoted out of the fourth tier at the end of the 1998-99 season under Ron Noades, before they were defeated in the first round of the League Cup by Ipswich at home at Griffin Park in their second match of the following campaign in front of just 4, 825 people. Brighton have, quirkily, gone unbeaten 17 times on three different occasions. As well as the run displayed in the graphic above — which ended in January 2017 when they were in the Championship (second tier) — they also went 17 games without defeat in the previous season (again as a Championship club) and in late 1987 in the third tier on the way to promotion. (Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Will Jeanes is an editor at The Athletic. Follow Will on Twitter @will_jeanes