Football Food For Thought / The Betfair Contrarian / 02 November 2007 /

The Betfair Contrarian is at it again, this time - reasons why Derby will escape the drop

If Derby County were a Christmas tree, they'd be lucky to be given away this year, so stunted is their growth. But while they may not be in possession of too many points right now, six at last count, at least they are in no doubt about their predicament - they are propping up the table and badly need to get their act together if they don't want to go down with the decorations.

This valuable piece of self-knowledge gives them an advantage over some of the other teams hanging around the lower rungs of the Premier League, gelling up their hair as they admire their "too good to go down" tattoos. Yes Tottenham, this means you. And your friend Middlesbrough. And before you start laughing at poor old Derby County again, bear in mind that they have a few other straws to clutch at ...

1) To stay up, you only have to outperform three other teams, and there are currently six other sides with fewer than ten points. Never in the history of the Premier League have there been more teams with fewer than ten points at this stage of the season (eleven games in). Obviously the more weak teams there are, the greater the chance the weakest team has to survive. On the only occasion when there were six sides with fewer than ten points after 11 games, in 2004/5, all four teams at the bottom of the table still had hopes of surviving on the last day of the season.

2) There has never been a season in the Premier League in which all three teams at the bottom of the division after eleven games have been the same three at the end of the season. At least one team will escape, and in five of 15 seasons, two have.

3) In seven out of 15 Premier League seasons the team which has been bottom at this stage has not gone down. Three teams have even stayed up after having the same or fewer points than Derby have now (Derby themselves in 2000/01, Southampton in 1998/99 and Blackburn in 1996/97). Of the other bottom of the table teams that survived, none had more than eight points, just two more than Derby currently have.

4) In the last ten seasons only six of the teams promoted via the playoffs have gone down, a 40 per cent survival rate.

5) When Derby crawled out of the compost heap in 2000/01, the gap between them and 18th place was eight points by the end of the season. That year, they didn't win their first game until 14 games in, and once they moved out of the bottom three after 16 games (still only their second win of the season) they didn't fall back into the relegation zone once. Which means you don't need to pick up a whole lot of points at the bottom to start floating upwards.

6) They still have to play five of the other six struggling teams at home, and have nine games against strugglers overall. Fulham, for instance, only have six games left and just two at home, Wigan three at home out of nine and Sunderland four out of seven.

7) Derby have a shocking goals scored tally - just five so far - but that's not a problem yet. Newcastle stayed up last year after being in the bottom three at this stage with just seven goals scored, and the season before, Everton climbed out of the bottom three with a 1-0 win in their eleventh game that took their goals for tally to just four.

(You can lay (bet against) Derby to be relegated at 1.18 on Betfair, and lay Derby to finish bottom at 1.73 on betfair.)

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