What is the fewest points to separate first and last in the top football league? This is not the answer to that question BUT...for interest....at the end of the 1974-75 season in England, the 76th Football League Division One, the top 10 were separated by only eight points. Champions: Dave MacKay's Derby 53 pts; Liverpool 51; Ipswich 51; Everton 50; Stoke 49; Sheffield Utd 49; Middlesbrough 48; Manchester City 46; Leeds 45; Burnley 45.
(then QPR 42, Wolves 39, West Ham 39, after Coventry 39, Newcastle 39, Arsenal 37, Birmingham 37, Leicester 36, Spurs!! 34/ the bottom three, Luton 33, Chelsea 33 and Carlisle 29 pts were relegated. A 24 POINT GAP.
Carlisle started the season well beating Chelsea 2 - 0 at Stamford Bridge. After 3 games they were top of the league for the only time in their history.The Cumbrians had an incredible start to their first season in the First Division, topping the league after winning their first three games, but were eventually relegated in bottom place, at the end of their first (and, as of 2022, only) season in English football's top flight.
Even adjusted to three points for a win, the difference is 25 points (in a 22-team league), which is far slimmer than anything that has passed in the real-life three points for a win world. The tightest top flight since the switch (1981) came in 1996-97, when a comparatively massive 41 points separated Manchester United from Nottingham Forest.
The closest was the League One table at the end of the 2005-06 campaign, which had Southend United top with 82 points, and Walsall bottom with 47, a gap of 35 points. At the end of the 1974-75 season in England, the top 10 were separated by only eight points.
1. Derby County (2007-08): 11 Points There are few certainties in modern life but knowing that no team will ever beat Derby County’s 11-point Premier League campaign from 2007-08 is one of them. A season so bad that it can be used as an adjective, “oh wow, your season is going a bit Derby 07-08”, a campaign so awful that it will never be overtaken (undertaken?) by any other side.
When Sheffield United started the 2020-21 Premier League season with two points from their first 17 games, some panic merchants wondered whether Derby’s record was under threat.
But it is so hard to maintain such a level of professional depravity over 38 games. Sheffield United would end last season bottom of the division, but with 23 points all the same. More than twice Derby, in other words. Derby were promoted to the Premier League by beating WBA 1-0 in the 2007 playoff final. Amid the cheers and the delight, no-one quite realised what a poisoned chalice this victory would be, and even after the first game of 2007-08, a 2-2 draw with FA Cup winners Portsmouth, it was still possible that things might just be ok. 17 September 2007 was a Monday and it was the only date in either 2007 or 2008 that Derby County would win a Premier League game. At home to Newcastle, a Kenny Miller goal, (which was missed by the live television cameras who were showing a replay at the time) separated the two teams, Derby climbed to 19th and then took two points from their next four games, with Miller scoring again, the striker’s second of the season. Six points from 10 matches. It’s not brilliant but it’s 23 points over the course of a whole season. Incidentally, Miller would go on to finish as Derby’s top scorer that year. Scored the most winning goals for them too. Then everything got much, much worse.
By late November manager Billy Davies had left, replaced by Paul Jewell. The January transfer window saw a classically eclectic mid-2000s spree, with the likes of Danny Mills, Emanuel Villa, Laurent Robert, Robbie Savage, Hossam Ghaly, Roy Carroll and Alan Stubbs all signing up for certain doom. In all, 36 players featured for Derby in 2007-08. Only two sides, Middlesbrough in 2005-06 (37) and Fulham in 2013-14 (39) have ever used more in a single Premier League campaign. A 2-2 draw at Newcastle just before Christmas ensured that they, alongside Fulham (two draws) would be the only side not to beat Derby this season. The second Fulham draw, 2-2 in late March, was the result that guaranteed (in case anyone post-October thought they had a chance) Derby’s demotion, which they celebrated by losing their final six games, a spell that saw them leak six goals to both Aston Villa and Arsenal. Emmanuel Adebayor scored hat-tricks in both of Arsenal’s games against Derby that season, another Premier League record. So the Rams ended the season on a run of 32 Premier League games without a win, with Jewell having collected just five points from 24 games in charge, with a record low 20 goals, with a joint-record 29 defeats, a top-flight record low 11 points and a Premier League club record 89 goals conceded in a 38-game season. The club have not returned, though they have lost the Championship playoff final twice since 2008, in 2014 and 2019. After avoiding relegation to League One on the last day of the 2020-21 season, it looks like (Wayne Rooney managerial heroics aside) next season Derby will indeed be in the third tier, thanks to penalties worth 21 points being applied. And if 21 points sounds like a lot, just think how it sounds to anyone involved in Derby’s 2007-08 campaign. 
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