Kenny Miller celebrates after scoring Derby County’s winner over Newcastle United at Pride Park on September 17, 2007. It would prove to be the Rams only victory of their 2007/08 Premier League season.
Could Derby County be finally about to lay some of the ghosts of their disastrous last season as a Premier League club?
Rams fans still wince at the memory of 2007/08, the club’s first in the top-flight for six painful years. Sadly, the pain was soon to get even worse.
Under Billy Davies and then Paul Jewell, Derby would go on to set record after unwanted record – the league’s lowest points total (11), the fewest wins in a Premier League season (one in 38 games), most defeats (29), fewest goals scored (20), most goals conceded in a 38-game season (89).
In fact, Derby and Swindon Town (1993/94) are usually acknowledged as the worst teams to have participated in the Premier League, but this season Sheffield United are doing their damnedest to join them.
The Blades recorded their fifth defeat of the season by five goals or more at the weekend, leaving Chris Wilder’s side facing the prospect of setting several unwanted Premier League records. Yes, they have already bettered that particular Rams bugbear – the 11-point low – but there is plenty more to go at…
Cut down
United have lost 18 of their 25 league games this season, with only three wins, to prop up the table on 13 points – but even those figures do not fully illustrate their struggles.
They were beaten 8-0 by Newcastle at Bramall Lane in September and have lost their last two home games 5-0 to Aston Villa and Brighton, with further defeats by that scoreline at Arsenal in October and relegation-rivals Burnley in December – after which they sacked manager Paul Heckingbottom and reappointed Wilder.
Only two teams in Premier League history – yes, Derby and Swindon – have previously conceded five goals or more on five occasions in the same season, though they both went on to add a sixth.
Swindon’s 1993/94 relegation season included them losing 5-0 at home to Liverpool and Leeds as well as away to Villa, 5-1 at Southampton, 6-2 at Everton and 7-1 at Newcastle. Among Derby’s 29 defeats in 2007/08 they lost 6-0 at Liverpool and at home to Villa, 5-0 at Arsenal and at home to West Ham, 6-1 at Chelsea and 6-2 to Arsenal.
Record pace
United have conceded the most goals ever through 25 games of a Premier League season, 65, and will need to improve to avoid breaking records for defensive futility set by Derby and Swindon.
The most goals conceded in a Premier League season is 100, by Swindon in their 42 games that season. Derby set the worst of the 38-game era, 89, as they also recorded the worst points total (11) and goal difference (-69) in any Premier League campaign.
The Blades have conceded an average of 2.60 goals per game, worse than Derby’s 2.34 and Swindon’s 2.38. Indeed, they are on course to concede 99 goals this season (98.80 at their average of 2.60) so are even at risk of breaking Swindon’s 42-game record.
An average goal difference of -1.72 per game over a 38-game season equates to -65.36, within four of Derby’s record.
Sadly, they have at least already passed the Rams’ 11-point tally. However, they and Burnley, also on 13, could join only six previous teams who finished with under 20 points. Their current 0.52 average per game equates to 19.76 over a full season, so any further drop-off would see them in the unwanted company of the Sunderland sides who managed just 19 points in 2002/03 and 15 in 2005/06, Portsmouth’s 19 in 2009/10, Villa (17 in 2015/16), Huddersfield (16 in 2018/19).
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