Going down with over 40 points

You hear it on an annual basis the "magic 40 points". However getting to 40+ points more often than not in England anyway is guaranteed safety, in fact getting to 36 or 37 points in England usually is enough to stay up too. This varies across the leagues in Europe. For this post we'll have a look at the example of teams that did get 40+ points but still ended up relegated in 20 team leagues.

England:
West Ham 2002-03
Since the Premier league reduced in size to the current 20 team format in time for 1996-97, West Ham are the only side to have gone down with over 40 points. Their points tally of 42 in 2002-03 remains the English record and that tally would've kept them up in any other season. Oddly no team has been relegated since with 40 or more points in the premier league. To make things slightly worse for West Ham, in 2009-10 a tally of just 31 points would've kept a team up as 18th placed Burnley went down with 30 points.

Others
West Ham are one of only three sides to have been relegated with 40 or more points since the Premier league went to 20-teams. The others occurred straight after the format was adopted. Sunderland went down in 1996-97 with 40 points and the following season Bolton Wanderers slipped through the trap door with the same tally.

Italy:
Brescia & Bologna 2004-05
Italy didn't adopt the current 20-team format until the 2004-05 season but in the very first season of the expansion two teams went down with over 40 points. Brescia were relegated with 41 points but Bologna went down after a play-off but did finish with 42 points that season. Bologna's relegation was after a play-off defeat to Parma in what was a relegation tie-breaker because Parma also had 42 points.

Others
No other side in Italy under the 20-team format has gone down with 40 or more points.

France:
AS Monaco 2010-11

This one has to be the most unluckiest. Monaco's tally of 44 points remains the highest tally for a relegated team in Europe's 20-team leagues. What will pain Monaco is the fact that the season before, a tally of just 34 points would've kept a team up.
Not surprisingly it took till the final day for Monaco's relegation to be confirmed. Had Monaco won their game against Lyon not only would they have stayed up, they would've relegated Nice, who would've gone down with 46 points, a tally that would unlikely be broken. As it was 44 points remains as the record in Europe.

Bastia & Caen 2004-05
Corsican side Bastia were relegated in 2004-05 with 41 points and they were joined by Normandy's Caen who finished with 42 points in the same season. This is the only time that two sides in the same season have gone down with 40+ points.

Others
France didn't adopt the 20-team format till renaming the league in 2002-03. Since then only five sides have gone down with 40 or more points. Three of them I have mentioned above, the other two are Racing Club Lens in 2007-08 who went down with 40 points and Sochaux in 2013-14 who went down with the same tally.
A special mention must go to AS Nancy in 1999-00. When the French top division was an 18 team league, the club were relegated that season with 42 points which is an amazingly high total for a league that small.

Spain:

Deportivo La Coruna 2010-11

La Liga's highest points tally for a relegated team is poor old Deportivo in 2010-11. The 43 points amassed by the Galicians wasn't enough to keep them in the top division, 11 years after they won the Liga title. That final day in 2011 saw up to five teams (all of which had over 41 points) battle to stay up. In the end it was Zaragoza's win over Levante that relegated Depor, who went down 2-0 to Valencia. This relegation was the final nail in the famed Super Depor era.


SD Compostela 1997-98
Another Galician side tasted relegation with quiet a high tally. Compostela actually did go down with 44 points, however they finished 17th and were actually relegated after a play-off defeat to Villarreal.

Others
Of the 20 team leagues, and Spain only adopted the current format in 1997-98, Spain has the highest amount of teams that have gone down with 40 or more points.
No fewer than on eight occasions has a team gone down with tallies of 40 or more points. If 40 is the magic number in England then perhaps 45 is magic number to be absolutely certain in Spain.

Real Betis' relegation 2009
soruce: http://elcorreoweb.es/

Shed a tear for Real Betis who have twice been relegated with tallies of 42 points (1999-00 & 2008-09). Real Oviedo were relegated in 2000-01 with 41 points while the following season Las Palmas went down with 40 points. Real Valladolid succumbed to relegation in 2003-04 with 41 points.
Real Zaragoza, in what was very much a shock relegation in 2007-08 had 42 points. Another shock relegation in 2011-12 saw Villarreal go down with 41 points.