The Most One-Sided Rivalries in Top-Flight History
We all love the narrative of the “unpredictable” derby. It’s the classic football cliché: form goes out the window, the underdog finds another gear, and local bragging rights make the table irrelevant. But if you actually sit down and look at the cold, hard numbers of top-flight history, that “anyone can win” sentiment starts to look a bit shaky. We like to frame rivalries as fiercely competitive, but the record books usually have a much colder take. A closer look at these long-running matchups shows huge stretches of dominance that pretty much dismantle the mythology surrounding certain derbies. You can see these lopsided trends everywhere, especially in how fixtures are assessed by sportsbook markets, which tend to bank on decades of hard results rather than just the heat of a rivalry.
The Merseyside Imbalance
Take the Merseyside Derby, for example. It’s often called the “Friendly Derby,” but for Everton fans, it hasn’t been very friendly for a long time. By the end of 2025, Liverpool had racked up over 100 wins in this fixture, while Everton remained stuck in the late 60s. There was a staggering stretch where the Reds went 23 games unbeaten against their neighbors. Think about that for a second. An entire generation of fans grew up without ever really seeing the blue half of the city come out on top. Even with Everton’s spirited 2024 win, the historical gap isn’t just a lead—it’s a chasm.
North London and Beyond
Then you have North London. Arsenal vs. Tottenham is usually a highlight of the season, but historically, the Gunners have been the ones holding the whip hand. With nearly 90 wins to Spurs’ 68, the “gap” that people talked about for decades wasn’t just a taunt; it was a statistical reality. Even when Tottenham improved in the late 2010s, they still struggled to meaningfully dent a century of Arsenal dominance.
Is it just an English phenomenon? Not at all. Look at the Derbi Barceloní in Spain. Barcelona vs. Espanyol is technically a rivalry, but it’s one of the most lopsided in Europe. Barcelona’s win percentage is so high that the fixture often feels less like a contest and more like an annual tradition. When one team has ten times the budget and a trophy cabinet that requires its own postcode, the “rivalry” tends to feel more like a local formality than a competitive sporting event.
The New Era of Prediction
Why does this happen? Usually, it’s a mix of financial muscle and a psychological “hex” that’s hard to break. But the way we analyze these lopsided games is changing. We’re moving past just looking at old programs and win-loss columns. For instance, the way Liverpool’s AI now processes tactical data and player fatigue suggests that the “luck” of the underdog is being squeezed out by pure efficiency. If the big teams can use predictive models to iron out their own mistakes, the window for a historic upset gets even smaller. It’s a bit clinical, sure, but it’s the direction the top flight is heading.
Does a one-sided record ruin a rivalry for you, or does it make the rare upset even sweeter?
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