Premier League history: Derby break Premier League records with worst campaign in the competition

The Rams remain the earliest side to suffer the drop as they produced a Premier League campaign of truly horrific proportions in the 2008/08 season - one that would go down in history for all the wrong reasons.

Perhaps no side has ever been so far out of its depth than this Derby side that had twice as many managers and three time as many chairmen as it did Premier League victories during his most humiliating of seasons.

Teams have been bad before, but rarely has a side been cut so far adrift of the rest of the field - even second-bottom Birmingham, who were also relegated, were almost in a different league to Derby - the Blues bagged 35 points which was over three times what Derby could achieve.

Just one win all season and a total of 11 points all season remain targets of ineptitude that all promoted teams will do well to get anywhere near in the future.

Derby's season to forget

The Rams won their first game of the season at their sixth attempt when Kenny Miller gave them a 1-0 win over Newcastle - little did we know that would be their only taste of three points that season.

What that also means is that IF Derby get back into the Premier League one day they'll be under pressure immediately as they'll kick off on a record winless run of 32 games in the top flight - that's some way to start a season back in the big league.

Manager Billy Davies lasted until November when he was replaced by former Wigan boss Paul Jewell, but he could do little to improve the situation as he could take just five points from the remaining games - returning fewer than Davies managed in a shorter time.

Off the field things were just as bad as Peter Gadsby, Adam Pearson and Andrew Appleby were all chairmen at Pride Park during the campaign.

The Rams tried to turn the tide in the January transfer window as they signed Danny Mills, Robbie Savage, Roy Carroll and Emanuel Villa to try and get out of trouble, but all to no avail.

The drew both games with Fulham that season, took four points off Newcastle and added draws against Portsmouth, Bolton, Manchester City, Birmingham and Sunderland.

They could grab just three clean sheets all season long as they conceded 89 goals while mustering just 20 at the other end, and they were eventually put out of their misery on March 29 with still six games left to play.

Huddersfield matched that last season when going down with six games to play but that was confirmed a day later on March 30.

Derby's unwanted records

• Fewest points in a season: 11
• Fewest away points in a season: 3
• Fewest wins in a season: 1
• Most consecutive games without a win: 32
• Most defeats in a season: 29 (tied with Sunderland & Ipswich)
• Fewest goals scored in a season: 20
• Most goals conceded in a season (38 games): 89
• Worst goal difference in a season: –69

Derby are one of just six teams to have failed to reach 20 Premier League points in a season, but they're four 'in front' of Sunderland's equally hapless 2005-06 side under Mick McCarthy, who netted 15 points. The Black Cats get their names on this dreaded roll of dishonour twice as they went down in 2003 with 19 points.

Sunderland also scored just one more goal than the Rams to avoid grabbing that particular record, but they did suffer more home defeats than Derby to at least take one record off poor County.

Having a combination of the most goals conceded and the fewest goals scored in a 38-game season is quite some going - only Swindon (100) and Ipswich (93) have conceded more but they both played in a 42-game campaign.

That obviously results in Derby's record goal difference, which is something special as their -69 final standing is a full 12 goals worse off than the next best.

These records could stand for some time.

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