Higgo's Belly
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Read this article below, regarding Derby’s record low points total season. The author assumed that no team would ever be in such a mess, that it could possible to be worse than Derby that season. They got that wrong unless, please step forward Ralph Hasenhuttl.
Derby County (2007-08): 11 Points
There are few certainties in modern life but knowing that no team will ever beat Derby County’s 11-point Premier League campaign from 2007-08 is one of them. A season so bad that it can be used as an adjective, “oh wow, your season is going a bit Derby 07-08”, a campaign so awful that it will never be overtaken (undertaken?) by any other side. When Sheffield United started the 2020-21 Premier League season with two points from their first 17 games, some panic merchants wondered whether Derby’s record was under threat. But it is so hard to maintain such a level of professional depravity over 38 games. The Blades would end last season bottom of the division, but with 23 points all the same. More than twice a Derby, in other words.
Derby were promoted to the Premier League by beating WBA 1-0 in the 2007 playoff final. Amid the cheers and the delight, no-one quite realised what a poisoned chalice this victory would be, and even after the first game of 2007-08, a 2-2 draw with FA Cup winners Portsmouth, it was still possible that things might just be ok.
17 September 2007 was a Monday and it was the only date in either 2007 or 2008 that Derby County would win a Premier League game. At home to Newcastle, a Kenny Miller goal (which was missed by the live television cameras who were showing a replay at the time) separated the two teams, Derby climbed to 19th and then took two points from their next four games, with Miller scoring again, the striker’s second of the season. Six points from 10 matches. It’s not brilliant but it’s 23 points over the course of a whole season. Incidentally, Miller would go on to finish as Derby’s top scorer that year. Scored the most winning goals for them too.
Then everything got much, much worse.
By late November manager Billy Davies had left, replaced by Paul Jewell. The January transfer window saw a classically eclectic mid-2000s spree, with the likes of Danny Mills, Emanuel Villa, Laurent Robert, Robbie Savage, Hossam Ghaly, Roy Carroll and Alan Stubbs all signing up for certain doom. In all, 36 players featured for Derby in 2007-08. Only two sides, Middlesbrough in 2005-06 (37) and Fulham in 2013-14 (39) have ever used more in a single Premier League campaign.
A 2-2 draw at Newcastle just before Christmas ensured that they, alongside Fulham (two draws) would be the only side not to beat Derby this season. The second Fulham draw, 2-2 in late March, was the result that guaranteed (in case anyone post-October thought they had a chance) Derby’s demotion, which they celebrated by losing their final six games, a spell that saw them leak six goals to both Aston Villa and Arsenal. Emmanuel Adebayor scored hat-tricks in both of Arsenal’s games against Derby that season, another Premier League record.
So the Rams ended the season on a run of 32 Premier League games without a win, with Jewell having collected just five points from 24 games in charge, with a record low 20 goals, with a joint-record 29 defeats, a top-flight record low 11 points and a Premier League club record 89 goals conceded in a 38-game season. The club have not returned, though they have lost the Championship playoff final twice since 2008, in 2014 and 2019. After avoiding relegation to League One on the last day of the 2020-21 season, it looks like (Wayne Rooney managerial heroics aside) next season Derby will indeed be in the third tier, thanks to penalties worth 21 points being applied. And if 21 points sounds like a lot, just think how it sounds to anyone involved in Derby’s 2007-08 campaign. You might as well call it a million.
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