Everton have just ended one club record winless run in the Premier League, so can they now break another hoodoo?
While the late 1-1 comeback draw at Newcastle United was a welcome point, it marked a 13th Premier League fixture without a win for Sean Dyche’s men who broke the club’s previous record of 12 set by Mike Walker on October 29, 1994. That subsequently ended with the 1-0 victory over Burnley, but when Everton step out against Mauricio Pochettino’s side on Monday night, nearly 30 years will have passed since the Blues last secured three points at Stamford Bridge courtesy of Paul Rideout’s 39th-minute header past Dmitri Kharine on November 26, 1994.
It was new manager Joe Royle’s first away game in charge of Everton and it’s a sequence that goes back even longer than the club’s record-breaking silverware drought, which stretches to when another headed goal from Rideout in the capital secured the FA Cup at Wembley the following May when they defeated Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United 1-0.
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The world was obviously very different back then when the Blues picked up their most-recent three points at Chelsea. Baby D’s Let Me Be Your Fantasy was number one in the UK charts (it would eventually be knocked off top spot some three weeks later by East 17’s Christmas smash Stay Another Day); John Major was Prime Minister; Charles and Diana were still married. The first National Lottery draw had taken place the weekend before the Blues’ triumph at Stamford Bridge while that month the Daily Telegraph became the first national newspaper in Britain to launch an online edition although only 600,000 people – little more than 1% of the population – had access to the internet in their homes at this point.
In football terms, Chelsea’s neighbours Fulham were languishing in the Football League’s basement division, finishing five places below Chesterfield, who were promoted through the play-offs with a certain 23-year-old centre-back called Dyche among their ranks, while other current Premier League clubs Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion were all in the third tier. Five of the Everton side that started the 1-0 win over Burnley last weekend – Vitalii Mykolenko, Jarrad Branthwaite, James Garner, Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin – had not yet been born.
Just who has picked up three points in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge since? Well Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Brentford and Wolverhampton Wanderers this term alone as, although Chelsea went over four seasons unbeaten at home between 2004-2008 under Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant, and then again the 2014/15 season during the Portuguese manager’s second stint in charge, the club has still suffered some 76 home defeats in the competition.
From 1994/95 onwards, Arsenal have won away against Chelsea nine times in the Premier League; Liverpool eight times; Manchester United, Manchester City and Aston Villa (twice since Everton’s last visit!) six times apiece; Southampton and West Ham United five times each; Blackburn Rovers four and even Sunderland and Bournemouth – the latter in just seven visits – on three occasions. On the flip side, Sheffield United have also only won once in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge – in October 1992 in the competition’s first season, a result that predates Everton – but other than Luton Town, who lost 3-0 in just their second game on August 25 last year, the only other current Premier League club to have never triumphed at the ground are Chelsea’s neighbours Fulham (P17 D6 L11) with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Brighton both securing their first successes at the venue since the Blues were last there.
While Chelsea have finished above Everton in all but one of the subsequent seasons (in 1995/96, when the Blues came sixth and Chelsea were 11th), as two ever-presents in the Premier League, Everton’s lack of victories in the head-to-head seems to represent something of a mental block, especially when you look at the size and resources of some of the other clubs to have subsequently picked up three points at Stamford Bridge. In terms of total games, it is the joint longest winless run by one Premier League club away to another, equalling Newcastle United’s record against Liverpool (28 matches) since the Magpies last collected three points at Anfield on April 16, 1994.
Although it would be a massive boost to Everton’s survival chances if they could finally end their streak – the club did of course triumph at the ground in an FA Cup penalty shoot-out in 2011 – their winless Premier League run away to Chelsea does include no fewer than 13 draws. Frank Lampard never got the chance to go back there as Blues boss against the club where he spent the bulk of his playing career, but Dyche earned a 2-2 result there on March 18 last year when the visitors twice came from behind to secure a share of the spoils with goals from Abdoulaye Doucoure and substitute Ellis Simms with what proved to be his only senior strike for the club, while Everton defeated Chelsea 2-0 win the sides last met at Goodison Park on December 10.
