Alexander Isak has lost his first four Premier League starts at Liverpool, breaking the club record in the process. Who has made the worst start at each club?
If you’d been told in the summer that within three months of Liverpool signing Alexander Isak, the Swede would have broken a club record, you could have been forgiven for assuming it was some kind of goalscoring feat.
The best side in England had signed one of the world’s best centre-forwards, so how could it not work out?
Well, so far, it hasn’t. In a major way.
After he started what became a deeply damaging defeat to Nottingham Forest last Saturday, Isak’s record at his new club reads four losses from four Premier League starts. That makes his start to life at Liverpool the worst by any player in the club’s Premier League history.
4 – Alexander Isak is the first Liverpool player in Premier League history to end on the losing side in each of his first four starts for the club. Unfortunate. pic.twitter.com/gJLnUqkek1
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 22, 2025
Football is of course a team game, and to place the blame for Liverpool’s demise at the feet of their British record transfer would be entirely unfair.
But just how badly this has gone is still shocking. And there’s no doubt Isak has been a long way off his best. His terrible record in Liverpool colours isn’t entirely coincidental.
In 321 minutes on the pitch in Premier League games, he has had just seven shots and hit the target only once. He is yet to score, but he does have one assist from his two chances created, having set up Cody Gakpo’s goal in the defeat at Chelsea, though there has been some debate as to whether Isak even meant to find his teammate at all. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, though, because this article can’t be all negative.
In that spirit, it’s also worth mentioning that Isak has three wins from three starts in other competitions: two in the Champions League, against Atlético Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt, and one in the EFL Cup against Southampton. Meanwhile, he only came off the bench in the loss to PSV Eindhoven in midweek.
A win in a Premier League start for Liverpool eludes him, and even if he gets one on Saturday against West Ham, it’s likely his record will stand for a long time. There’s not much chance of Liverpool enduring a run of defeats like they are currently on again anytime soon.
But there are plenty of players who have started life at other clubs with a longer losing run in starts than Isak. Here are the longest such streaks:
Longest Losing Streaks in Premier League Starts a New Club
14 games – Juninho Bacuna, Huddersfield
11 games – Kalifa Cissé, Reading; Sean Thornton, Sunderland
10 games – Kevin Kyle, Sunderland
9 games – Anthony Vanden Borre, Portsmouth; Marcus Stewart, Sunderland
8 games – Dara O’Shea, Burnley; Tomas Brolin, Crystal Palace; Isaac Mbenza, Huddersfield; Dwight Gayle, Newcastle; Aaron Mokoena, Portsmouth; Talal El Karkouri, Jon Stead, both Sunderland; Marcus Bent, Wigan
Juninho Bacuna holds the Premier League record for the most consecutive losses to begin life at a new club, having lost each of his first 14 starts for Huddersfield after joining in the summer of 2018. Incredibly, the longest losing streak that Huddersfield went on all season was just eight games, but Bacuna was dropped for a win over Wolves that interrupted their poor run, and he came back in for another run of losses.
Juninho Bacuna at Huddersfield 2018
He did eventually avoid defeat in his 15th start, but that 1-1 draw against Manchester United came after relegation had been confirmed. He never won a Premier League game he started, but he’s still only 28 and playing in the Turkish Süper Lig at present, so there’s a chance he’ll return to England one day with the aim of finally breaking his duck.
Kalifa Cissé started off life in the Premier League as he would go on, sent off in a defeat to Chelsea in August 2007. It was four months before he was trusted to start another game, the second of 11 starts he made in the competition for Reading that season, and he lost every single one. He was at least part of the Reading side who earned promotion back into the Premier League, and he did eventually win five games he started.
Sean Thornton is the holder of a very unwanted record, having lost all 11 of his starts for Sunderland, and he never played another game in the competition. He holds the record for the most starts in Premier League history while losing every single time (11).
Who Holds the Record at Your Club?
With Isak breaking Liverpool’s record losing streak at the start of a career with them, you may be wondering who has made the worst start to life at every other club. We’ve got you covered.
Here’s a full list of every club who have played in the Premier League, along with the players who boast the longest losing streaks in starts at the beginning of their time there.
A special mention should be given to Simon Davies, who holds the accolade of being top for two different clubs, having lost in his first three Premier League starts in Tottenham colours and then his first five for Everton.
There are four players who made losing starts of at least four games at two different clubs: Kelvin Davis, who lost his first five at Sunderland and his first four at Southampton; Marcus Bent, first four at Crystal Palace and first eight at Wigan; Michael Brown, six at Manchester City and four at Portsmouth; Tommy Smith, four at Portsmouth and six at Watford.
The record at Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal is just three games, as was the case at Liverpool before Isak’s current run. Only last season, Antonín Kinsky very nearly set a new record at Tottenham, though, losing his first three to equal five other players, before finally winning his fourth game. He did, however, then lose his fifth and sixth starts, so he has a pretty dismal record in Premier League games.
Some records have been set in the last few years: Dara O’Shea (eight games) at Burnley, Oliver Burke (seven) at Sheffield United, Lesley Ugochukwu (six) at Southampton, Elijah Adebayo (six) at Luton, Morgan Gibbs-White (five) at Nottingham Forest and Harry Amass (four) at Manchester United. Amass’ run is still ongoing, too, so keep an eye out for the possibility of him starting a fifth game for United when he returns from a loan spell at Sheffield Wednesday.
Other noteworthy names that appear in the list include Jack Wilshere, who started and lost four games at the start of 2018-19 after joining West Ham, then didn’t start another game all season, only to return to the lineup for the opening day of 2019-20, which they also lost. That is the longest losing streak in starts to begin life at West Ham.
Sunderland also deserve a mention for the fact that 26 different players have started off at the club with a losing streak of four games or longer. That’s, unsurprisingly, more than any other club in Premier League history.
Premier League Stats Opta
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