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Coral’s five craziest scorelines in Premier League history

| 22.10.2014
SPORTSBOOK ODDS

Following Southampton’s scintillating display against Sunderland, who they thrashed 8-0 at St Mary’s, Coral experts provide five other crazy Premier League scorelines.

The Saints were tipped to struggle his season, following the sale of multiple key players from last term, as well as having to bring in a new manager, Ronald Koeman, but now find themselves up in third place after eight games.

Here are some other earth-shattering results which, in some instances, led to ultimate glory and in others to doom.

Manchester United 8-2 Arsenal (2011/12)
The Red Devils (16/1 title chances this term), unsurprisingly, feature three times on this list, and this is by far the most extraordinary as it was against a supposed title rival.

Only one place separated the duo at the end of the season, but Man Utd finished second, 19 points and 31 goals ahead of Arsenal, and it showed in this early game in the campaign.

A Rooney hat-trick along the way helped inspire United to inflict the worst defeat on the Gunners by any team in any competition since 1896. No wonder Robin van Persie, who was on the scoresheet for the away side, switched the Emirates for Old Trafford the following season.

Portsmouth 7-4 Reading (2007/08)
This fixture officially produced the biggest scoreline in Premier League history, in what was an incredible match for all spectators – even Reading fans had to appreciate a game like this.

It was 2-2 at one point, but Zimbabwean Benjani’s hat-trick, to make it 4-2, led Harry Redknapp’s side on the way to victory, with a further five goals to come of course.

The Royals are currently down in the Championship, and are 6/1 chances to reach the play-offs this season, but ultimately had the last laugh with Pompey now languishing in League Two.

Nottingham Forest 1-8 Manchester United (1998/99)
This was, and still is, the largest away win in the history of the Premier League. While this campaign may be more remembered by Red Devils fans as the famous treble-winning season, this result on the 41st anniversary of the Munich air disaster surely led to United believing anything was possible.

Forest were potentially still in the game after 50 minutes, with the score at 4-1, but supersub Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came on in the 72nd to smash in a quick-fire four goals – also a record for a player off the bench.

It must’ve been a sweet feeling for Alex Ferguson (later to be knighted that year), who got one over his United predecessor Ron Atkinson.

Tottenham 6-4 Reading (2007/08)
Reading went into this game exactly three months after their heart-breaking 7-4 loss to Portsmouth, and they could have been forgiven for believing they could win this time, going 4-3 up in the 74th minute.

However, the goals stopped there for the Royals, who were killed off cruelly, after taking the lead three times in this game. Spurs’ Steed Malbranque levelled the scores, before Jermain Defoe and Dimitar Berbatov, for his fourth, sealed the victory.

The Berkshire side never recovered from those two defeats and were eventually relegated that season, agonisingly just one point from safety. Reading’s high-scoring suffering was not to stop there, though, as five years later in the League Cup against Arsenal they went 4-0 up before losing 7-5 after two 120th minute Gunners goals in extra time. The unluckiest English team in history?

West Bromwich Albion 5-5 Manchester United (2012/13)
We round off with another Premier League ground-breaker – this time the highest scoring draw. It also marked another occasion, in that it was the final match of the great Sir Alex’s career in the dugout. Even though his side were already crowned champions and in his last ever game, the Scot was still breaking records.

What was perhaps irritating for Ferguson, however, was that his side were 3-0 up at one point. But Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku, on loan from Chelsea at the time, hit a fantastic hat-trick to inspire the Baggies to a brilliant comeback.

These two teams, coincidentally, face off on Monday October 20th, also at the Hawthorns. A draw once more is priced at 14/5.

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Author

Sam Barnard

Sam has been writing for Coral since January 2014, and is the assistant editor of the news site. As well as the main betting sports, football, tennis and cricket, he covers the likes of golf, F1 and darts too, the latter of which has become a particular favourite. Sam enjoys playing as much as writing about sports, but niggling injuries have limited his participation in recent years, so is happy to mainly watch the pros such as Manchester United, Yorkshire CCC, Raymond van Barneveld and even Gibraltar national football team instead.