The heaviest of heavy Premier League defeats

Don't worry Gus, one bad defeat doesn't ruin a season

Sunderland's 8-0 walloping at Southampton has worried fans but how have other clubs fared after large defeats?

Sunderland took a barrage of negative headlines after their 8-0 humiliation at the hands of Southampton at St Mary's.

The most important aspect for the Black Cat had to be that they moved on from that defeat and learn from it. After making unforgivable errors in the follow-up match to Arsenal, the Black Cats look to have started the bounce back with a morale-boosting 3-1 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

Sunderland undoubtedly struggled at the start of this season and there are fears they could be involved in a tough relegation battle. That hammering certainly showed it could be a long, hard campaign for Gus Poyet's men.

But, such a crushing defeat can just be a one-off, a game of freakish proportions where everything you do goes wrong and everything your opponent does works perfectly. Or such a defeat can be a frank and honest assessment of just how under-equipped you are for Premier League football.

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So what should fans take from that defeat? Does it mean they are relegation certainties, or can they dust themselves down and move on with some degree of optimism for the rest of the season.

Avoiding relegation was always going to be the primary target, so let's take a look and how other teams who were handed embarrassing Premier League thrashings ended up come the end of the season.

There has only ever been one nine-goal winning margin in a Premier League game and that came in March 1995 when Manchester United thrashed Ipswich Town 9-0 at Old Trafford. Andy Cole got five of those goals, with Mark Hughes getting two and Roy Keane and Paul Ince getting one apiece. That 1994-95 season was a nightmare for Ipswich, with 29 defeats in total and a final points tally of only 27.

End of the season: Ipswich finish rock-bottom in 22nd and are relegated.

The only other time that any team has scored nine goals came in September 2009 when Spurs spanked Wigan 9-1 at White Hart Lane. Jermain Defoe ran riot in north London and helped himself to five as Spurs recorded their highest top-flight win. Only a strike by Paul Scharner prevented Wigan sharing the record of a nine-goal defeat with Ipswich. That season Wigan did manage to avoid relegation by a healthy six points, but they did have a shocking goal difference of -42.

End of the season: Wigan finish 16th.

There have been three further 8-0 wins on top of Sunderland's thrashing at Southampton. Firstly, Newcastle beat Sheffield Wednesday 8-0 at St James' Park in September 1999. As seems to be a trend in these huge wins, Alan Shearer scored five, with Aaron Hughes, Kieron Dyer and Gary Speed also on the scoresheet. The 1999/2000 campaign was a painful one for Wednesday and they ultimately ended some five points from safety.

End of the season: Sheffield Wednesday finish 19th and are relegated.

In the same season as Wigan conceded nine at Spurs, the Latics conceded another eight in London as Chelsea won the Premier League title in emphatic fashion with an 8-0 win in May 2010. They needed a win to reclaim the title and it never looked in doubt once Nicolas Anelka put them ahead after six minutes. Chelsea were rampant that season and had already put seven past Sunderland, Aston Villa and Stoke in that campaign.

End of the season: Wigan finish 16th.

Chelsea also put eight past Aston Villa in December 2012 during Rafa Benitez's unpopular reign at Stamford Bridge. There were goals from Fernando Torres, David Luiz, Branislav Ivanovic, Frank Lampard, Ramires (2), Oscar and Eden Hazard as Chelsea were far too good for a young Aston Villa team. Lampard's goal on his 500th Premier League start took him ahead of Bobby Tambling's record of top-flight goals for Chelsea on a fantastic afternoon for the Blues. It was a tough season for Villa in 2012/13, but in the end they did have a reasonable five-point cushion between themselves and the bottom three.

End of the season: Aston Villa finish 15th.