The Agony Index: Which Premier League Club's Trophy Drought Is Most Painful?

Arsenal's silverware cupboard has been gathering dust since 2020, yet their current predicament barely scratches the surface of English football's most spectacular trophy famines.

After falling to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final, the Gunners remain firmly in contention for multiple prizes this season – they're Premier League title favourites and still active in the Champions League and FA Cup. But it's worth examining just how their six-year wait stacks up against the truly absurd droughts afflicting other top-flight institutions.

The Full Reckoning

Eight Premier League clubs currently languish without major silverware, ranked not by years elapsed but by sheer ridiculousness quotient – a wonderfully subjective measure that factors in expectation, near-misses, and the peculiar pain of each situation.

8) Arsenal – 6 years

That 2020 FA Cup triumph comes with caveats the size of Wembley. Covid rendered it questionable; Mikel Arteta inherited Unai Emery's squad rather than building it himself. Still, six years barely constitutes a drought – except when you're Arsenal, a club of Arsenal's stature, with a team that's finished second in the league three consecutive seasons.

The cruelty lies in their incompetence elsewhere. They've reached the Carabao Cup final and Champions League semi-finals, yet somehow can't navigate past round four of the FA Cup – a competition they once dominated, winning four times in seven seasons before 2020. Three times they've exited at the first hurdle in recent years, a fate that occurred just once in the previous 24 seasons combined.

This season? They genuinely should win something. Odds-on for the Premier League, perfectly capable in the Champions League despite the "never won it" narrative, and the FA Cup remains gettable.

7) Nottingham Forest – 36 years

The League Cup of 1990 feels positively ancient. Forest beat Oldham in that final after dispatching Coventry in the semis – a distant echo of when they were actually relevant.

The 1991 FA Cup final followed, a wound still raw enough to make mentioning Paul Gascoigne unwise in their presence. Another League Cup final in 1992 came and went. Since then: nothing of substance until their 2022 Premier League return, when they've at least reached domestic cup semi-finals.

Currently in the Europa League, they reached the quarter-finals whilst battling relegation. No real excuses for underperforming in Europe anymore.

6) Wolves – 46 years

Andy Gray's 1980 League Cup winner against Nottingham Forest remains their last hurrah. That victory allowed captain Emlyn Hughes to add a medal to his Liverpool-earned collection.

The 1981 FA Cup semi-final defeat to Spurs preceded Wolves' catastrophic slide through the divisions, eventually bottoming out in the fourth tier by 1986. They've since clawed back to the Premier League, reached cup semi-finals in 2018/19 and beyond, but nothing remotely close to silverware.

This season? Realistically, no.

5) Sunderland – 53 years

That 1973 FA Cup shock – second-division Sunderland dismantling Don Revie's Leeds with Ian Porterfield's 13th-minute goal – remains one of football's great upsets. They became the first team outside the top flight to win the cup in over 40 years, sparking a brief fashion: Southampton and West Ham repeated the trick within seven years. Nobody has since.

Sunderland reached the 1985 League Cup final, the 1992 FA Cup final as a second-tier side, and came agonisingly close in 2014 when they led Manchester City 1-0 at half-time in the League Cup final before collapsing 3-1.

This season? Port Vale sent them packing early doors.

4) Burnley – 66 years

Their last trophy was the 1960 First Division title, clinched on the final day ahead of Wolves and Spurs. The following year, Spurs won the Double. None of the three has won a league title since.

Burnley were so dominant they couldn't even be bothered entering the League Cup for four seasons after its inception. They then managed the "Near Miss Double" in 1961/62 – runners-up in the league to Ipswich and FA Cup final losers to Spurs. By decade's end, their era had evaporated.

The 2008/09 League Cup semi-final against Spurs provided cruel theatre: down 4-1 from the first leg at White Hart Lane, Burnley stormed to a 3-0 second-leg victory at Turf Moor. Under normal away-goals rules, they'd have progressed. But the League Cup's bizarre system only counted away goals after extra-time, allowing Spurs to score twice more and progress.

This season? Not happening.

3) Leeds United – 36 years

Their 1992 First Division title – the last year before the Premier League's arrival – remains their final prize. Somehow, this fact barely registers when discussing recent title winners.

Leeds never sustained a genuine title challenge in their subsequent 31 years, despite some stellar seasons. Their best was third in 1999/2000, yet they trailed Manchester United by over 20 points. They've reached the Champions League semi-finals and UEFA Cup last four, but their domestic cup record has been wretched – losing the 1996 League Cup final to Aston Villa and never reaching a semi-final in either competition since.

Still in the FA Cup, though most fans would gladly accept West Ham elimination if it meant finishing above them in the league.

2) Everton – 31 years

Paul Rideout's 1995 FA Cup winner against Manchester United at Wembley was supposed to herald renewed glory for the Goodison Park faithful. Instead, it marked the beginning of a 30-year-plus void.

This came when Everton had been league champions just eight years earlier and appeared destined for more silverware. The Premier League era has brought no league challenges whatsoever, occasional disappointing European campaigns, and a single FA Cup final appearance in 2009 – when Louis Saha's 25-second goal proved insufficient against Chelsea's Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard.

They've reached domestic cup semi-finals since, but nothing beyond quarter-finals in recent years. Sunderland dumped them out of the FA Cup at the third-round stage.

This season? No.

1) Aston Villa – 30 years

The 1996 League Cup represents Villa's final trophy – their second in three seasons, won by a team that finished second in the inaugural Premier League season and reached the FA Cup semi-finals that same year.

What followed was genuinely mad. Four FA Cup finals (2000, 2015) and two League Cup finals (2010, 2020) came and went without success. They've spent time in the Champions League, mid-table obscurity, the Championship, and everywhere between. Yet somehow, never another trophy.

Last season's FA Cup semi-final represented a genuine opportunity squandered. The previous year's Europa Conference League semi-final collapse was equally damning – they reached the last four only to stumble.

This season? Absolutely. Villa have eased into the Europa League quarter-finals, and unlike their Conference League disappointment, this represents genuine silverware within reach. Only Arsenal possess better odds.