Observant Old One-Eye readers, of which there are three, will notice that the above headline is, in fact, precisely the headline that was used 51 weeks ago, the last time that the Pompey fleet sailed into Derby.

On that evening, an enterprising Rams side brimful with loans recycled from other clubs comfortably saw off a Portsmouth team still suffering from their Premier League relegation hangover.

'Kick it Out’ was the theme of the day – One Game, One Community – where we are reminded that there is a place in football for all races, creeds and colours without exception – but it could just as easily have been ‘Recycling’. Anti-racism is good, recycling is good.

Half of the Portsmouth team which ran aground in the first half yesterday was recycled from the previous encounter, and judging from their woeful performance, it was difficult to say whether it was the good or bad half.

Indeed, the club themselves are in the process of recycling managers after Steve Cotterill jumped ship for the inevitable keelhauling he will receive when Nottingham Forest are marooned at the bottom of the table (That’s enough nautical references – Editor).

The Rams, on the other hand, were an almost sparklingly brand-new outfit from a year ago – only Frank Fielding played both fixtures and he was on loan last time around, although that has more to do with the crippling, ever-lengthening and seemingly permanent injury crisis in the field hospital that passes for Derby’s dressing room - but more of Steve Davies later.

The Rams made two changes from the side that battered Middlesbrough’s woodwork to kindling without reward the previous week. Chris Maguire was finally handed a start up front in place of schoolboy Mason Bennett who had detention and Russell Anderson returned to right back.

Jamie Ward moved out wide in a formation that just bristled with attacking intentions – it was almost a throwback to the old-fashioned 4-2-4 of Old One-Eye’s youth, a century or two ago.

Derby’s favourite home referee was the man in charge - Craig Pawson shows up whenever he can afford the bus fare from South Yorkshire. The much-maligned and misunderstood whistle-blower has had good days and bad days during his chequered career and has been variously described elsewhere as fussy at best and incompetently biased at worst, but whenever he turns up at Pride Park you can bet your house on a home win.

Anyway, that’s enough preamble, at least for now. Mr Pawson checked his watches, bet his return bus fare on a home win and blew his whistle to get the game under way.

Right from the start, The Rams side tore into Portsmouth and Theo Robinson picked up a pass from Ward before threading a perfect ball through to midfield dynamo Craig Bryson. The Scottish international brilliantly side-stepped Tal Ben-Haim before drilling the ball low past Stephen Henderson to give Derby the lead with barely two minutes gone.

Within seconds, referee Pawson was called upon to make his first difficult decision of the day when Robinson, the nearest thing that football has to Billy Whizz, went sprawling under a Henderson challenge. It looked a penalty to this old eye, but in fairness it ALWAYS looks a penalty when a Derby player makes contact with the turf.

At this point in time I ought to remind readers that last week, former Rams skipper Robbie Savage suffered a tragic nose-related accident whilst appearing on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ – an accident which, unfortunately, I have yet to see. I shall save that for when I need cheering up. I am reliably informed though that Robbie was performing a well-rehearsed move which went horribly wrong.

The manoeuvre to which I refer first saw the light of day in 1997-98 in injury time at Pride Park when Robbie’s blatant and most theatrical dive won Leicester a penalty and ultimately the match. Apparently, Mr Savage’s nose was slightly bent in both incidents. The camera, however, is a write-off and the Pride Park groundsman is still trying to get the groove out of the pitch fourteen years later.

Mr Pawson’s lenience worked in Derby’s favour shortly afterwards when Jason Shackell sawed off Greg Halford at the knees as The Rams were caught on the break. Halford seemed to land very awkwardly but was able to continue after lengthy treatment.

Shackell saw yellow for his troubles, but on another day it could easily have been another colour. A few moments later, Jason Pearce thumped a header against the bar for Pompey, but it was a fleeting spark of resistance.

With a quarter of an hour gone, The Rams had a two goal cushion under their belts. Not for the first time, Portsmouth squandered possession and were simply taken apart. Bryson won the ball, sent Jamie Ward away and his perfect pass saw Robinson shoot first-time. Henderson saved well but Maguire was on hand to fire home the rebound.

Mark O’Brien became the latest casualty when he landed on his shoulder following an innocuous challenge, and he was clearly struggling when Derby keeper Frank Fielding finished him off by landing on top of the prostrate Dubliner following a Portsmouth corner. Luckily for The Rams, Kevin Kilbane’s own injury problems seem to be behind him – at least for this week – and the vastly experienced veteran was able to step into the fray with Anderson moving to the centre.

After half an hour, it was all over as any kind of a contest. Jeff Hendrick played the ball through the Portsmouth defence and Jamie Ward simply passed the ball beyond the increasingly beleaguered Henderson, who could be forgiven for thinking that he was playing Derby on his own.

Entropy can be considered to be the measure of the effectiveness or usefulness of a particular form of energy. From the perspective of the Pompey defence, the sum total during the first half was ‘not a lot’.

It could have been a cricket score by half time as on two occasions Maguire was thwarted by superb saves. At the other end, Anderson was very brave, diving in the way of a goal-bound Erik Huseklepp drive to preserve Derby’s three goal advantage at the break.

At half time, Old One-Eye turned his thoughts to possibly the unluckiest player ever to walk the face of the planet, Steve Davies. Forever cursed to be greeted with “Is that a snooker cue in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?” Steve of the Derby striker variety is currently recovering from a skull fracture.

At the precise time that Steve’s injury occurred, mid-way through the second half of the game against Southampton, a NASA satellite was crashing to earth. Although it was widely reported that it fell into the Pacific Ocean, it would not surprise me one iota that a small piece of it broke away at some time before impact and plummeted to the ground elsewhere, catching Steve a glancing blow before ending up in the aforementioned Robbie Savage’s 1997-98 nose-crater.

What are the odds? In Steve’s case, about evens I should think.

Anyway, the second half started and Pompey showed a bit more steel with Dave Kitson and recycled Ram Luke Varney prominent for the visitors. Varney in particular symbolises everything that is good with respect to recycling. Hardly used at Derby and seldom noticed, he turned up at Blackpool during their Premier League campaign and did pretty well.

Varney liked Blackpool so much that he purchased a pair of day-glow moon boots in precisely the same colour as Blackpool’s home shirt, cut them down to size and inserted studs into the soles in order to fashion a rudimentary pair of football boots which he wore for the first time yesterday. The excess material following the alteration was made into a hat which also made its debut at the same time, worn proudly by Dave Kitson. The only problem was, nobody noticed.

Pompey rang the changes, which makes a change from the god-awful chimes, and introduced Marco Futacs who in a previous life was the mascot for the 1998 World Cup – oh sorry, that was Footix – and a young off-spinner named Abdul Razak.

Derby’s wonder-boy, 15 year old Mason Bennett, having finished his homework, came on for the home side and showed great strength and fleetness of foot in beating three players before being felled in the area. Again, in some eyes this was a nailed-on penalty but to those who are less myopic, possibly not. On reasonable reflection, it was a penalty. Ah, the power of authorship.

Pearce earned Portsmouth a consolation with 80 minutes gone when he headed home from close range, then Fielding saved well from Ben Haim to stop the jitters from really setting in. Eventually though, Derby were able to run the clock down comfortably without any real alarms.

At the end of the day, it had been a thoroughly well-deserved win. The only real surprise upon reading the match statistics was that Pompey enjoyed a marked superiority regarding possession. Still, having the ball doesn’t really mean a lot unless you use it when you do – and Derby were far better in terms of that.

Old One-Eye's Man of the Match:

Jeff Hendrick – find of the season.

Old One-Eye's Player Ratings:

Fielding(7); Anderson(7), O’Brien(6) (Kilbane 30, 7), Shackell(8), Roberts(6); B Davies(6), Hendrick(8), Bryson(8), Ward(8), Robinson(6) (Doyle 6), Maguire(8) (Bennett 7).

Referee:

Craig Pawson (Phonetic Parental Disapproval Personified Unjustifiably, Yorkshire)

Attendance:

24148 (947 Hello Sailors)

Photo: Action Images

Derby County Polls