DERBY COUNTY were handed a 21-point deduction earlier this season after entering administration, and given the near impossible challenge of staying in the Championship.

But things could have been very different for Wayne Rooney and Co had they not been so far behind almost every other team.

Reading too were punished with a six-point deduction after breaching spending rules.

Rooney's Rams are currently eight points off safety, but a supercomputer at bettingexpert.com has predicted that they would finish as high as NINTH had they not been slapped with the mammoth deduction.

The prediction, in a world without deductions, has Derby just three places outside the play-offs – and nowhere near the threat of relegation.

Instead Reading, Peterborough and Barnsley are predicted to fall down to League One.

Rams fans would have been in for a stress-free season consisting of a mid-table finish, had it not been for their financial woes.

However in reality with the deduction, Derby are not forecasted to be able to pull off the impossible and avoid the drop.

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The supercomputer has them to be relegated in second-bottom, ahead of strugglers Barnsley.

Even managing to not finish at the foot of the table would be some achievement, given the current chaos at the club.

There is the prospect of the Rams being kicked out of the league mid-season after EFL chiefs demanded proof that the club has funds in bank before February 1.

After being initially docked 12 points in September after entering administration, a further nine points were chalked off in November after Derby were found to have breached the Championship's Profitability and Sustainability rules.

At the time the Rams where a whopping 18 points off safety, and in just two months Rooney has shaved that down to eight, with the possibility of survival on the cards.

Tom Lawrence's double at the weekend helped Derby to a 2-0 win over Sheffield United, which would have had Derby 11th in the table were it not for the points deduction.

The sterling job Rooney has done at Derby has seen the Manchester United legend linked with the managerial role at Everton.

SunSport exclusively revealed that the former Toffee is on Everton's list of potential replacements for the axed Rafa Benitez.

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