Paul Jewell would accept Derby County’s confirmation as the worst team in Barclays Premier League history if he could emulate Sunderland and follow up with an immediate promotion.

Tomorrow’s visiting team at Pride Park amassed only 15 points two years ago but came back up as champions and, having been able to spend £40 million in the transfer market since, look set to retain their status.

With nine points on the board, Derby are doomed but Jewell is looking beyond this “catastrophic” season and, despite lambasting his players for their performance in last Saturday’s 2-0 defeat away to Wigan Athletic, believes he can rebuild a promotion-winning team.

“At this moment, Sunderland are the worst team in Premier League history,” Jewell said. “To get past that has to be our aim. But I’m embarrassed and I want the players to be as embarrassed and hurt as I am at the results.

“Put it this way. If you offered me the record low points tally this season, but you’re coming back up from the Championship next year, I wouldn’t care what happens in the rest of this season. If you can go up, go down and learn from your lessons, like Watford have, then it’s not been a worthless exercise.”

Jewell has intensified training this week, but, as he awaits the results of a scan on the knee that Giles Barnes twisted on Wednesday, he denied that Moor Farm has been turned into a boot camp. “We aren’t bottom of the league because we’ve been playing well,” he said. “We’ve got to write this season off once we’ve looked into why we are where we are - are the players not good enough, are they not prepared enough, are they fit enough, are we organised enough? When we get back [into the Premier League], we have to tick those boxes.”