Derby County's 2007-08 horror show: earliest a top-flight side was doomed to a trophyless season

When was a top-flight team first confirmed as having a trophyless season?

"What is the earliest point in a season a team in the top flight has been confirmed as having a trophyless season?" asks Matt Walker. The concept of a trophy has shifted in the last 15 years — particularly since Arsène Wenger referred to fourth place as a trophy — but The Knowledge deals only in actual shiny things you can lift above your head.

In England, the flicker of a trophy is often extinguished at the start of January, when Premier League teams enter the third round of the FA Cup. Tom Reed cites Bournemouth's previous season, when they were knocked out of both domestic cup competitions by 10 January. Despite a good campaign, they had no realistic expectation of winning the Premier League and weren't in Europe either — though, as Tom points out, Bournemouth were not mathematically out of the title race at that time.

Tom has calculated that Derby County, who finished the 2007-08 Premier League season with only 11 points, are the earliest case of an English top-flight team being mathematically unable to win a trophy. "They were knocked out of the League Cup on 28 August and the FA Cup in the fourth round on 26 January. Their inability to win the Premier League was officially confirmed in their 26th league match of the season, on 9 February, when a 3-0 defeat by Tottenham — coupled with a victory for the leaders Arsenal — made the gap between top and bottom insurmountable."

Elsewhere, the main cup competition begins earlier. "The early rounds of the Coppa Italia are played at the start of the season," writes Daz Pearce, "and therefore the weaker Serie A teams could easily crash out of it in September. That's what happened to Lecce in 1993-94 and Brescia in 1994-95." Both were never in title contention — Lecce won one of their first 23 games, Brescia none of their first 14 — and both tumbled out of the Coppa Italia in round two. The Guardian's research suggests Lecce and Brescia were mathematically out of Scudetto contention after 22 of the 34 Serie A games: Lecce on 6 February 1994, Brescia on 5 March 1995.