2009/10 to 2017/18

Derby County never reached the Premier League in the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18, spending nine in the Championship. Their best finish was 3rd in the Championship, in 2013/14. They didn’t win a major trophy. Over those nine summers they paid £33.8m in transfer fees and took in £32.8m, a net spend of £945k.

Derby County spent all nine seasons in the Championship, and most of them looking upwards. After 15th and 19th, a patient rebuild delivered 85 points and third place in 2013/14, followed by defeat to QPR in the play-off final. Fifth in 2015/16 and sixth in 2017/18 brought more play-off disappointment.

The club was not shy about spending. Tom Ince arrived from Hull in 2015 and Matěj Vydra from Watford for £8m in 2016. But the better players kept leaving: Jeff Hendrick went to Burnley for £10.5m, then Ince and Will Hughes both left in 2017.

That makes Derby a natural 115.football project. Three play-off campaigns and no promotion is a decade of nearly. With £900m and hindsight, the side that finished third in 2013/14 gets the extra quality it needed, Hughes and Hendrick stay put, and Pride Park finally gets the Premier League football it kept just missing.