Premier League’s Lowest Points Records: The Worst Teams Ever

The Premier League doesn’t forgive. It doesn’t care how historic your club is, how passionate your fans are, or how magical your promotion run felt. The moment that opening whistle blows, you’re either ready or you’re swallowed whole. And for some clubs, the plunge is immediate and brutal.

Every season, four teams must go. However, some don’t just fall, they crash. They unravel. Their seasons become football folklore for all the wrong reasons, carved forever into the Premier League’s hall of shame.

These are the teams whose campaigns turned into nightmares. Every match a lesson in pain, every result another nail in the coffin.

Some came up full of hope and left broken.

Some were already wobbling before August and collapsed. Poor signings, lost dressing rooms, bad luck, brutal fixtures; whatever the cause, these teams ended up limping across the finish line with points tallies so low, they became records in futility.

This isn’t just about losing games. It’s about losing direction, losing fight, losing belief. It’s about fans watching week after week with their heads in their hands. It’s about clubs becoming punchlines.

Most of all, it’s about the cold, cruel number that tells the story loudest: the points total.

Here’s the full descent: an unflinching look at the Premier League’s lowest points records. The worst seasons. The most brutal collapses. The clubs that fell the hardest… and are still remembered for it.

The Lowest Points Ever: Derby County – 11 Points (2007/08)

The absolute lowest. Rock bottom.

The team by which all other flops are measured. Derby County’s 2007/08 season was not just bad, it was catastrophically embarrassing.

In 38 games, they managed only one win. One. It came early, too. A 1-0 victory over Newcastle in September, with Kenny Miller grabbing the goal.

That was it.

That was the high point. What followed was 29 losses, 8 draws, and a nightmare that never ended.

Relegation was confirmed in March. They still had six games to go. And they lost them all.

They scored just 20 goals all season, barely one every two games, and conceded 89. Their top scorer was Miller with four goals.

They spent money, too.

Around £20 million. But it all went wrong. Billy Davies got them promoted, then Paul Jewell took over midway. Neither could fix the slide. Morale was gone. Belief vanished. The towel was thrown in long before the final whistle of the season.

It wasn’t just the worst Premier League campaign ever. It was the kind of failure that gets whispered about with disbelief even now. Derby set a record that no club ever wants to break.

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Southampton – 12 Points (2024/25)

The most recent crash. Fresh in memory. Southampton came up, full of hope, only to be shredded by the Premier League’s intensity.

2 wins. 30 losses. 26 goals.

That was their story. They joined Ipswich and Leicester in going straight back down, with the worst of it being how lifeless the season felt. No fire, no response, no moments of magic. Just defeat after defeat.

It was a campaign that lacked fight. A return to the top flight that felt like a mistake from the very beginning.

Sunderland – 15 Points (2005/06)

Sunderland fans have suffered. And this was the first real collapse that echoed across the division. After topping the Championship the year before, they looked completely lost in the Premier League.

Three wins. 29 defeats. Just 26 goals scored. They finished 20th, a full 23 points away from safety. A chasm.

It was a season with no rhythm. They never got going. And the Premier League punished them brutally.

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Sheffield United – 16 Points (2023/24)

Fresh wounds. Still stinging. The Blades came up with momentum and dreams, and left with shattered confidence.

Three wins, 104 goals conceded, and a record nobody wants, most goals ever shipped in a single Premier League season. Defensively, they were a horror show. Games got away from them fast. Confidence eroded week after week.

They finished bottom, deservedly so. A cruel reminder of just how wide the gap can be.

Huddersfield Town – 16 Points (2018/19)

A team that never looked like they belonged that year. Huddersfield managed just three wins all season, scored 22 goals, and didn’t trouble anyone.

The season was lifeless.

They were relegated with weeks to spare, and they haven’t returned to the top flight since. For all the charm of their promotion, their second year in the Premier League was utterly joyless.

Aston Villa – 17 Points (2015/16)

Big club. Historic name. Even they couldn’t avoid disaster. That season was pure chaos, with four different managers, internal drama, and no cohesion.

They won just 3games, scored 27 goals, and conceded 76. The club was completely disconnected. Fans were furious, the dressing room was in disarray, and the results were atrocious.

A 17-point season for Aston Villa felt surreal, but it happened.

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Sunderland – 19 Points (2002/03)

And yes, they’re here again. Sunderland hit rock bottom twice in the space of a few years. This one might hurt more.

Just four wins. 21 goals in 38 games. A 15-game losing streak to close the season. They gave up. You could see it. They collected just one point from Christmas to May.

It wasn’t a team. It was a mess.

Portsmouth – 19 Points (2009/10)

A strange season. Portsmouth were crippled by financial issues, docked 9 points for going into administration, and still finished last by a wide margin.

Even without the deduction, they’d have gone down.

What stings is that this was a club that had just won the FA Cup two years prior. Now they were collapsing. They managed seven wins, but the off-field problems sucked the life out of everything else.

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Norwich City – 21 Points (2019/20)

Teemu Pukki started brightly, but the magic faded. Norwich just didn’t have enough. They played attractive football at times, but the results were disastrous.

5 wins. 27 losses.

Relegation was confirmed early. The defence crumbled, and the midfield offered little protection. Even with Pukki’s 11 goals, it was never going to be enough.

Ipswich Town – 22 Points (2024/25)

Back in the Premier League for the first time in two decades, Ipswich’s return was a tough watch.

4 wins, 82 goals conceded, and a squad that wasn’t ready for the level. Their energy wore off quickly. They weren’t humiliated in every game, but they also never truly competed.

Norwich City – 22 Points (2021/22)

Another entry for Norwich, and a very similar story. No wins in the opening six games. Only 23 goals scored all year.

They tried, but they were simply outclassed. The structure of the team never clicked, and it became another season to forget.

Watford – 23 Points (2021/22)

Three different managers, zero consistency. Watford spent most of the season looking confused.

They scored 34 goals and still lost 27 games.

Nothing worked. Not the tactics, not the rotations, not the effort. The Vicarage Road faithful had little to cheer about.

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Sheffield United – 23 Points (2020/21)

This one hurt more because of what came before.

The season prior, Sheffield United finished 9th. There was excitement. Hope.

And then they fell flat. Seven wins, no wins before January, just 20 goals in 38 games. The same core couldn’t recreate the magic. It was as if the spark had been extinguished overnight.

Sunderland – 24 Points (2016/17)

Their final season in the top flight. A team that had clung on year after year finally let go.

Six wins, 29 goals, and David Moyes is unable to change anything.

The energy was gone. The fight had disappeared. They dropped to the Championship, then League One, as the collapse continued.

Watford – 24 Points (1999/00)

An early entry, and one that started full of excitement. Watford had come up through two promotions, but the dream didn’t last.

Six wins, 26 losses, and a swift return to the second tier. They were simply overpowered by better sides.

Teams That Survived Despite Low Points

Not every team with a low total was doomed. A few scraped by, somehow, and lived to fight another day.

Nottingham Forest – 32 Points (2023/24)

They stayed up with just 32 points. In any other season, they’d have gone. But the bottom three were so poor, Forest were safe with games to spare. A strange year. But survival is survival.

West Brom – 34 Points (2004/05)

The Great Escape. They were bottom on Christmas Day.

No one had ever survived from there. But they did. 34 points, just enough. Palace, Norwich, and Southampton all finished within two points of each other. It was tight. But West Brom made it.

Villa, West Ham, Hull – 35 Points

Three different seasons. Three different teams. The same story. Barely staying up with 35 points.

• Villa survived in 2019/20 thanks to a controversial goal-line tech error in a match against Sheffield United.
• West Ham clung on in 2009/10, just five points above Hull.
• And Hull scraped survival in 2008/09 by a single point.

The margins are tiny. But the rewards are massive.

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Why Do These Collapses Happen?

Sometimes, it’s money. Or a lack of it. Clubs lose key players and can’t replace them. Others come up from the Championship and underestimate how brutal the league is.

Often, it’s psychological. When a team starts losing regularly, it’s hard to shake. Confidence disappears. Belief fades. Even good players start making mistakes. Teams get stuck in a spiral and can’t pull out of it.

Managerial instability doesn’t help either. Some of the clubs above had multiple managers in a single season, with no chance for anyone to settle.

New tactics, new voices, more confusion.

And in one case, like Portsmouth, off-pitch chaos destroyed any hope of on-field success.

Modern Struggles: A Widening Gap

There’s another trend. More of these dismal seasons are happening now. In the last two years, six newly promoted clubs have gone straight back down, often without a fight.

In 2024/25, Ipswich, Leicester, and Southampton combined for just 59 points. The year before, Luton, Burnley, and Sheffield United totaled 66. These are the two worst collective performances by relegated teams ever.

It’s strange. Money in soccer is higher than ever.

Parachute payments are massive. Clubs should be more prepared. But the gap between top and bottom keeps growing. The elite spend fortunes. The rest scramble for scraps.

And in the end, it shows. The Premier League is unforgiving. And if you’re not ready, it will chew you up and spit you out.

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Closing Thought

In soccer, glory is never guaranteed. Shame can be.

And in the Premier League, those who fail most dramatically are never forgotten. These teams, these seasons, these stories, they are the cautionary tales of the modern game. A reminder that survival in this league is never easy, and that history is written not only by the winners, but also by the very worst.

The points don’t lie. They never do.