As Southampton face the prospect of challenging Derby’s record Premier League lowest points total, the Rams manager that year warns: ‘I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy’

The last time Derby County‘s record low points tally of 11 was under threat, bookmakers Paddy Power produced a spoof advert in which two of their relegated players Alan Stubbs and Danny Mills met up at Rams Anonymous group.

Paul Jewell, manager for the second half of the infamous 2007/08 season, was also asked to take part but the phone call lasted just five seconds.

‘I was slightly insulted people would think I would do that,’ he recounts.

‘I’m not judging others but to me, it wasn’t a laughing matter. It would have been disrespectful to make money out of it.

‘It was a very quick conversation. It was just never happening.’

That was in 2021 when Sheffield United reached January with only two points. They finished on 20, leaving Derby as still the worst team in Premier League history, but now there is another contender with Southampton on six points from 23 games and facing next-to-bottom Ipswich at Portman Road on Saturday.

Jewell’s phone is starting to ring again because of his association. Derby already looked doomed when he replaced Billy Davis at the end of November 2007 but he still feels some of the burden, managing only a further five draws from the 24 matches he was in charge.

This time it’s Ivan Juric looking to redeem a desperate situation at St Mary’s following the sacking of Russell Martin.

‘When you’re cut off adrift, it is a downward spiral. You feel the Gods are against you,’ sympathizes Jewell.

‘Southampton are 11 points from safety. For any team, to win three in a row is tough. To do that just to be in contact drains you as a manager, and it definitely drains the players.

‘We were short of Premier League quality and couldn’t build up a head of steam. If you are within touching distance, you have hope. But we weren’t, and neither are Southampton.’

For Jewell, his first month was a killer. After Tuncay’s worldie as Derby lost 1-0 to Middlesbrough, Mark Viduka scored an 87th-minute equaliser for Newcastle and Steve Gerrard a last-minute winner for Liverpool. Worst of all, Steve Howard missed a penalty when Derby led Blackburn 1-0 and they lost 2-1.

Instead of eight points from the four games, Derby got one and after the debacle at Ewood Park a frustrated Jewell said on TV: ‘Some of the things that go on the pitch among this group of players just beggars belief.’

He acknowledges now that battering players whose confidence was already rock-bottom wasn’t the smartest thing. It’s a lesson Juric might find helpful.

‘I was too critical of them,’ admits Jewell.

‘We were making so many basic errors but I was wrong to say they weren’t any good.

‘I found it difficult to stand there defending errors but I probably should have because that is the way it works. I was to blame.

‘In fairness to the players they were fighting but it was like a bantamweight against a heavyweight in a lot of games. Not many ever played in the Premier League again.’

Jewell had previously enjoyed notable managerial success with Wigan, who he took to a League Cup final against Manchester United, and Bradford City who beat the odds to stay in the Premier League. He remembers speaking to David Moyes on the way to taking the job at Pride Park and being advised by the Scot to turn the car around and not turn up. ‘He was proved right,’ smiles Jewell.

A big fan of former Saints manager Martin – he first watched his MK Dons team play in a scouting capacity as director of football for Swindon – Jewell now wonders if he would have done things differently after winning the Championship play-off final.

‘Russell is very talented,’ says Jewell. ‘I am not here to decide but sometimes I think as a coach, maybe Russell will admit this or doesn’t believe it, you have to temper what you would like to do with what you can do because it is such a huge gulf to the Premier League.

‘At Wigan and Bradford, we knew we couldn’t take teams on toe-to-toe so we made it difficult to try and stay in games. Some of the goals Southampton gave away, and we did at Derby, makes it impossible because opponents don’t have to work hard to score.

‘It is hard to get the balance in recruitment right between experience and having legs. If you can’t run in the Premier League, you’ve got no chance.’

Derby did make signings during the summer before their disastrous season with Robbie Earnshaw and Claude Davis the marquee arrivals at £3million apiece.

Jewell regrets going into the market again in January – Robbie Savage was among several arrivals – when he now thinks he’d have been better off accepting relegation and saving the budget for the following summer.

With deadline day arriving on Monday, he doesn’t think a desperate last roll of the dice is necessarily the right thing for Saints.

‘If I had my time again, I would start looking around now for a team that could get back into the Premier League rather than one to keep us up,’ he says.

‘At this stage, you aren’t going to get proven players to come to you anyway. The advice for Southampton would be to look at the long-term future of the club.’

Southampton invested more than £100m last summer on the likes of Aaron Ramsdale, Flynn Downes, Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Cameron Archer but have so far gained only one victory, 1-0 against Everton.

Jewell is now 60 and not returned to football since leaving Swindon, living in Yorkshire where he helps people with dementia in the Bradford area. When possible, he watches Chelsea where his son Sam is part of the staff.

He accepts his managerial career was effectively finished at the highest level by Derby’s historically bad season.

‘It’s a horrible time and Southampton will be looking and wondering where the next win is coming from,’ he grimaces.

‘Players are not daft. When a manager walks in on a Monday morning, sometimes it doesn’t matter what you say.

‘The stigma of being Derby’s manager that season will never leave me. I’ve never believed it could be beaten.’

However, if Southampton lose next to another of Jewell’s former clubs, Ipswich, they really will start to panic about taking Derby’s crown as the worst-ever.

Jewell himself feels a bit guilty about what his heart is telling him. ‘I wouldn’t wish that record on my worst enemy,’ he admits. ‘At the same time it would be nice for someone else to have it!’