Aston Villa are the bearers of several unwanted statistics ahead of their Premier League clash with Everton.
Unai Emery will be looking to put the disastrous start to the new season behind him as Aston Villa take on Everton this afternoon.
The Villans spent the September international break in the Premier League relegation zone after earning just one point out of the first nine available. The bore 0-0 draw against Newcastle United was worsened still in a 1-0 loss at Brentford before a 3-0 thrashing from bogey team Crystal Palace at Villa Park.
Villa, preparing for a Europa League campaign, were tipped before the start of the season as serious contenders to get back into the Champions League. Everyone knew it would be a very competitive season but there was confidence Villa could overcome their challenges to succeed once more.
Trio of stats paint dismal Villa picture
If the first three outings are anything to go off, however, Villa will not be anywhere near the Premier League top five. There’s a long road ahead and purple patches can help Villa move back into contention, but they’ve made about as bad of a start as they could ever have imagined.
The 3-0 loss to Palace before the international break was humiliating enough, but it gets worse when you consider what statistics it brought to light.
First up, Villa have failed to score in any of their first three Premier League matches for the first time since 1997/98. That on its own is grim reading. Next up, this is also the first time since 2007 that an Emery team hasn’t found the net in four successive league outings, taking into account the 2-0 defeat away at Manchester United in May.
But it gets worse still… ready for it? Villa, rather remarkably, are the only team in the top seven tiers of English football yet to score a single goal this campaign. That’s right. As pointed out by The Athletic, you have to trickle all the way down to Acle United in the Anglian Combination Premier Division League to find another team without a goal so far.
It goes without saying, but Emery and his players will be desperate to put that to bed at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
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