How many defensive records could Arsenal break this season?

Arsenal have been undeniably superb defensively so far this season, conceding just three goals in the eight Premier League games they have played.

Every single one of the 19 other clubs in the division has let in at least twice as many as this and the London side are also the only outfit yet to concede more than once in a match in the 2025-26 English top flight.

Another clean sheet last weekend, this time away at Fulham, prompted The Athletic’s Duncan Alexander to note that Mikel Arteta’s team are, at this early stage, on track to match Chelsea’s record from 2004-05 for the fewest number of goals conceded in a Premier League season: 15.

Arsenal are now on track to equal Chelsea’s record of 15 goals conceded in a PL season

— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) October 18, 2025

Could Arsenal actually do it? Have other sides started off this well and then dropped off? Which club set the all-time, pre-Premier League, English top-flight record for the best defence almost 50 years ago? And which European club remarkably conceded just 11 goals when winning their only league title?

Let’s dive into the history books…

We’ll start with the modern era, looking at Premier League seasons (1992-93 onwards) to make base comparisons and see who Arsenal are competing against when it comes to tight defences across recent decades.

Here is every instance of a team conceding 25 goals or fewer in a Premier League season.

It is worth noting that the first three Premier League campaigns saw teams play 42 games, with the lowest goals conceded total in any of those seasons being 28 (Arsenal in 1993-94 and Manchester United in 1994-95). However, as a goals-conceded-per-game average that is still inferior to the 10 instances on the above list where all the teams played 38 matches.

So, Chelsea’s iconic defensive masterclass under Jose Mourinho in 2004-05 leads the way in the modern era — with the Portuguese manager’s first three seasons in charge of the London club counting for an impressive three of the best nine defences in Premier League history.

Surprisingly, five of the 10 best didn’t win the league title — with Arsenal only conceding 17 times in 1998-99 but coming second to Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United the standout.

United let in a whopping 20 more goals than Arsene Wenger’s side in that campaign and kept 10 fewer clean sheets (13 to Arsenal’s 23) but did enough at the other end to win the last English league title of the 1900s by a single point, the first part of a historic treble.

Arsenal only conceded more than once in a league match on one occasion in 1998-99 — losing 3-2 away against Aston Villa where they let in 18 per cent of their goals for the season (three of 17) in the space of 21 minutes.

Now, to that 15-goal Chelsea campaign. It was Mourinho’s first season at the club and his preferred centre-back pairing was John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho, with Petr Cech first-choice goalkeeper.

At this stage of the Premier League season (eight games in) they had conceded just once — James Beattie’s first-minute strike for Southampton in late August, a match Chelsea came back to win 2-1.

Mourinho’s side then lost 1-0 against Manchester City in their ninth game — the only time they were defeated in the league all season — with future Chelsea player Nicolas Anelka’s early penalty the difference.

James Beattie’s goal for Southampton was the only time Chelsea conceded during their opening eight games of 2004-05 (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

They then conceded six times in their next eight matches before going on a superb 10-game run from December 18 to February 12 where they didn’t let in a single goal. At the time it was the most consecutive top-flight matches an English team had gone without conceding, with the mark since surpassed by Manchester United in the 2008-09 season.

Cech was finally beaten by a close-range header from Norwich City’s Leon McKenzie at the start of March, before Chelsea went on to win their first league title since 1954-55 with three games to spare.

Mourinho then rang the changes, with Cech absent for those last three matches and Carlo Cudicini and Lenny Pidgeley both seeing time in goal. Chelsea were beaten at the back in two of them, letting in a single goal against both Manchester United and Newcastle United to finish with 15 goals conceded in 38 games.

So that is the Premier League record that Arteta’s team will be aiming to beat, and if they keep letting in goals at a similar rate then they will end up around that mark: their current average extrapolates to 14.25 conceded over the season.

Have we been here before, though? Are there examples of teams starting seasons similarly well at the back before dropping off and not even threatening Chelsea’s record? The answer is a resoundng yes.

Since that 2004-05 season, 13 sides (including Arsenal in 2025-26) have conceded three goals or fewer after eight games of a Premier League campaign. Here are the other 12 and the number they had let in after playing all 38 matches.

Chelsea in 2005-06 had only conceded twice at this point, and while Mourinho’s team went on to defend their title, they let in seven more goals than in the previous campaign. At the halfway stage, though, they had only conceded once more than in 2004-05 (nine to eight).

Other notables are Southampton in 2013-14, who ended up letting in the most goals of the sides on the above list with 46. Despite their good start at the back, the south-coast team — managed by current USMNT boss Mauricio Pochettino — were only the sixth-best side defensively in the Premier League that campaign.

Southampton’s defence in early 2013-14 was rock solid, but it didn’t stay that way (Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, last season’s champions Liverpool conceded 41 goals overall, despite letting in just three in their first eight games. It is worth pointing out, however, that Arne Slot’s team conceded nine times in the four matches they played after wrapping up the title.

So, clearly Arsenal will have to be exceptional at the back from now until May if they are to even threaten Chelsea’s mark of 15.

It is not totally out of the question, however. The London club have conceded the fewest goals in each of the last two Premier League seasons and haven’t let in more than two in a league match since December 2023 against Luton Town; 70 games ago. For context, that has happened to Liverpool eight times in the same period.

But what about before the Premier League started? Which team has been the best defensively across a season in the entire history of the English top flight (which began in 1888)?

Chelsea’s 15 goals conceded in 38 matches comes out at an average of 0.39 per game which is, ever so slightly, inferior to Liverpool’s incredible figure of 0.38 in the 1978-79 campaign when they conceded just 16 goals in 42 matches.

Liverpool — managed by Bob Paisley — had won the European Cup in both 1976-77 and 1977-78, but had been beaten to the English title by Nottingham Forest in the second of those seasons (Brian Clough’s team from that campaign also feature in the above table).

They easily won the First Division title back from Forest in 1978-79, though, with their eight-point cushion to second place (it was two points for a victory at the time) the biggest winning margin in nine seasons.

Liverpool’s first-choice centre-back pairing of Phil Thompson and Alan Hansen, and goalkeeper Ray Clemence, performed immensely and the team kept 28 clean sheets in their 42 matches.

Quirkily, due to bad weather, Paisley’s side didn’t play a single league game in the January of that campaign and as a result dropped from first to third. However, they then conceded just seven times in the second half of the season (in 21 games) — with three of those coming in an away defeat against Aston Villa where Liverpool let in 19 per cent of their goals (three of 16) for the campaign. Sounds familiar.

Liverpool’s 1978-79 title win was built on a legendarily tight defence (PA Images via Getty Images)

Geremi’s own goal away at Newcastle United on the final day of the 2004-05 campaign meant Chelsea did not break Liverpool’s all-time mark. If Arsenal are to beat it, they will need to concede 11 times or fewer in their remaining 30 games in 2025-26.

Four of the 10 sides with the best goals-conceded-per-game averages in an English top-flight season failed to win the title, with Liverpool counting for three of them: 1968-69 (second), 1970-71 (fifth) and 2018-19 (second) and Arsenal in 1998-99 (second) the other.

That 1970-71 campaign saw Wolverhampton Wanderers finish in fourth, above Liverpool, despite conceding 30 more goals than the club from Anfield.

What about in the four other leagues that make up Europe’s ‘big five’: France (Ligue 1), Germany (Bundesliga), Spain (La Liga) and Italy (Serie A)? Which side has had the best season defensively in any of them? And does it eclipse Liverpool in 1978-79?

The answer lies on the Italian island of Sardinia, with Cagliari’s 1969-70 title win (the only one in their history) seeing them concede just 11 goals in 30 games at an average of 0.37 — better than Liverpool’s English record.

Cagliari kept 20 clean sheets and this, combined with Gigi Riva scoring half of their goals (21 of 42) was enough to hold off second-place Inter and become the first — and so far only — team from outside the mainland to win the Italian top flight.

Milan, who feature three times on this list, had set the record the season before by conceding 12 goals at an average of 0.4 per game (despite coming third) — but Manlio Scopigno’s side, remarkably, went one better at the first opportunity.

Six of the 12 best seasonal defences in the history of Europe’s biggest leagues were achieved by Italian clubs from 1968-69 to 1993-94, an indication of how tight teams were at the back in Serie A during that period and also of the general style of play in the country back then.

Gigi Riva playing for Cagliari in 1970 (HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

No French or German team appear on the above list, with the best defensive seasons in those two countries both occurring in 2015-16: Paris Saint-Germain letting in 19 goals in 38 games at an average of 0.5 and Bayern Munich conceding 17 in 34 to also average 0.5.

Five of the 12 sides above failed to win the league in the season in question: Milan in 1968-69, Torino in 1976-77, Deportivo de La Coruna in 1993-94, Arsenal in 1998-99 and Atletico Madrid in 2015-16.

It is largely forgotten now, but in 2022-23 Barcelona had conceded just 11 times after 33 La Liga matches and were well-placed to break Cagliari’s mark. However, Xavi’s team let in nine goals in their remaining five fixtures to finish with an average of 0.53 goals conceded per game — not even in the two best in Spanish history.

Arsenal need to concede 13 goals or fewer in the Premier League this season to beat Cagliari’s record.