If you went to the Millwall match, you’ll know what you thought of it. If you didn’t go, you can certainly read the RamZone match summarizers’ accounts, and learn that it was far from a classic.

That said, the weekend finished up looking much better for the Rams than it might have. Norwich, Forest, Watford, Charlton and Wolves were all held at home, so the Rams were in good company; and have plenty of company near the top of the division.

After the Rams spent quite a bit of time towards the end of last season pretty much in a league of their own, with nobody close above or below, this season is shaping up to be very different.

After eleven games, with about a quarter of the season gone, here is a comparison of last season with this season:

2013/2014

2014/2015

Source: statto.com

You’ll see that this season’s leaders, Norwich, Forest and Watford are already five points behind last season’s early leaders. While two points now separate the top eight clubs, last season’s top eight at this point were separated by twelve points.

Nobody can tell where things go from here of course, but it looks as though things will be very different from last season.

I also took a look at how the Rams’ goal scorers stacked up against last season.

Chris Martin, with six from eleven League games is holding up well, but how are the equally important 'Other Than Chris Martin' or as I like to call them - OTCM scorers - doing compared to last campaign?

Last season, Bryson, Hendrick, Hughes, Ward, Sammon, Russell, Bennett, Dawkins and Bamford (I omitted Eustace, Thorne and the defenders) combined for fifty-four League goals, or a bit better than one per match.

This season so far, The OTCM players have thirteen League goals; so even without Bamford on the books and Bryson not yet hitting his stride, they are holding up pretty well.

The worry for me, and it seems with a lot of other fans, is Leon Best, he is starting to look like this season’s Conor Sammon, with brief, irrelevant substitute appearances being all we can expect.

Can we expect another striker to be brought in? It probably depends on whether the goals keep going in.

Any discussion of the Rams’ future doesn’t seem to include Mason Bennett as much as we might like. It’s now three years since Mason first appeared in the first team, and its getting to be time for him to make an impact if he is ever going to. I would really like to see him coming off the bench in place of the game time that Leon Best is getting, but unfortunately Mason is on loan at Bradford until January. Any likely contribution from him is still some way away.

How about the Rams’ defence? It isn’t long since I was complaining in this column that we had gone six League matches without a clean sheet; now its three League matches and four in all competitions without a goal conceded.

What has changed? Is Whitbread the difference? Certainly, if things continue this way I cannot see changes being made even when Buxton is fit. That may seem unfair to Jake, but there are few things better than clean sheets…

Due to the international break, the Rams have no match until the 18th, and then it’s Reading away. If the Rams can continue their new found parsimonious defending with continued consistent goal scoring — the Millwall match notwithstanding — then we have little to fear.

Especially since the rest of October and early November are not too fearsome anyway!

COYR!!

Photo: Action Images

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