Biggest London derby wins in Premier League history

It may have been in London where the Football Association was founded over a few pints at the Freemasons’ Tavern in Lincoln Inn Fields but the capital couldn’t boast a top-flight club until the 17th season of the Football League.

However, the division was awash with London representatives by the Premier League’s inception in 1992. The balance may have shifted from the northern monopoly of yesteryear but there is little love lost between the capital sides.

Each London derby, even if it isn’t against a club’s traditional rivals, invariably carries an extra edge. Here are the sides that have emphatically gotten the better of their capital neighbours in these grudge matches.

Arsenal’s first meeting with Wimbledon was abandoned due to floodlight failings, one of three Premier League matches throughout the 1997/98 season that suffered the same fate. It later emerged that a Malaysian betting syndicate was behind the outages. Wimbledon should never have turned the lights back on.

By the time the Dons travelled to Highbury in April, Arsenal were in the midst of a ten-game winning streak, overhauling a 13-point deficit to sneak ahead of Manchester United at the Premier League summit.

Charlton Athletic manager Alan Curbishley captured the mood of the travelling Addicks fans when he summarised the trip to West Ham. “It was Boxing Day, a local derby and I wish we hadn’t turned up,” he sighed before correcting himself: “I don’t think we did turn up.”

West Ham were already 3-0 up when Trevor Sinclair brought the ball down on his thigh 25 yards from goal and unleashed a thunderous volley. Sinclair was just one of the bright spots in a Hammers side boasting the youthful exuberance of Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole.

For five fleeting days at the end of 2023, Fulham were living the dream. Marco Silva’s side recorded back-to-back 5-0 thrashings, following up a demolition of Nottingham Forest with an even sweeter drubbing against West Ham.

In less than a week, Fulham accounted for almost 20% of their goal tally across the entire calendar year. No wonder Marco Silva hailed it as a “perfect afternoon for us”.

“Wasted potential on and off the pitch. Weak decisions taking us backwards” read the lengthy banner unfurled by Crystal Palace’s beleaguered support.

Roy Hodgson began his managerial career before Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta was even born but had no answers to the attacking might of his junior counterpart. The sands of time will forget how tight the match was before Gabriel broke the deadlock from a corner but Palace’s implosion thereafter was not enough to quell the discontent seeping out of the away end.

Five days after sealing Chelsea’s passage to the Champions League final, Fernando Torres scored his first and only Premier League hat-trick for the Blues.

Gary Neville’s goal-gasm may still have been going when Daniel Sturridge opened the scoring against Queens Park Rangers after 45 seconds. John Terry doubled the hosts’ lead before Torres took centre-stage.

The Spaniard’s three goals in a rare performance of promise for Chelsea represented 15% of his total league haul while draped in Blue.

Christian Gross infamously produced a Tube ticket during his introductory press conference as Tottenham Hotspur manager as part of a bungled metaphor. The German coach may have been rifling through his pockets for the slip of paper after his first league game at White Hart Lane.

Spurs had actually been the better side in a first half which ended 1-1 but imploded after the break, shipping five goals without reply. Gross eventually bought his return ticket nine months later.

Neil Warnock is never one to mince his words. However, QPR’s limp loss to Fulham was so insipid he didn’t even raise his voice. “If I started shouting today,” Warnock half-joked, “I would never shut up.”

Fulham’s Andy Johnson had plenty of reason to hoot and holler after scoring what would prove to be the only top-flight hat-trick of his career.

As the whistle blew on Chelsea’s largest-ever victory against their fierce London rivals Arsenal, with Stamford Bridge bathed in a warm spring sun and unbridled jubilation, Jose Mourinho was nowhere to be seen.

Chelsea’s enigmatic manager had called Arsene Wenger a “specialist in failure” one month before underscoring his barb on the Frenchman’s 1,000th match as Arsenal manager.

Mourinho scuttled down the dugout early, claiming to have called his wife so he could let her know the score. Wenger will do his best to not remember a historic afternoon for all the wrong reasons but probably won’t have much luck. He has previously described every defeat as “a scar in your heart that you never forget”.

For 30 obdurate minutes, West Ham threatened to blunt the Gunners once again. When David Moyes took his team to the Emirates in December, Arsenal racked up 30 shots without scoring in a 2-0 defeat.

Yet, Arsenal found the net four times from six shots in the final 15 minutes of the first half at the London Stadium. “This is football,” Mikel Arteta had shrugged after the frustrating festive reverse and the same sentiment could be applied six weeks later.

Declan Rice, the former West Ham captain who scored his first Premier League goal at this stadium against Arsenal in 2019, struck the final blow in the 65th minute, sweeping his new employers into a record-equalling 6-0 lead.

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