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RamsWeek 17 - Passing the Time
RamsWeek 17 - Passing the Time
Monday, 23rd Apr 2012 01:04 by Paul Mortimer

Derby County were aiming to finish as high in the Championship table as possible in their remaining games, with visits to Cardiff and Portsmouth in the penultimate week of their season.

Contract talk provided the early news of the week, with Nigel Clough expecting to move on Miles Addison and Lee Croft and forward Jamie Ward negotiating an improved deal after a productive first season at Pride Park Stadium.

Cardiff has been an unhappy hunting ground for Nigel Clough in his visits as Derby manager; 14 goals had been conceded in three visits and no points gained. The Bluebirds had ex-Ram Kenny Miller and loanee Peter Whittingham in their side, with duffer Robert Earnshaw on the bench.

Nigel Clough switched his attackers and played Tyson and Robinson as the spearhead, with Jamie Ward returning as Ben Davies (injury) and Steve Davies (a substitute) dropped out of the first eleven.

The Rams started purposefully and neat, quick attacks spearheaded by Tyson as the outlet on the left, posed problems for the Bluebirds’ defence. Tyson went close and had a ‘goal’ disallowed for offside; Paul Green should have done better with two efforts bur Cardiff keeper David Marshall’s goal stayed intact.

The familiar symptom of a lack of finishing quality cost Derby dear as they failed to score in a bright opening period when they were on top. Cardiff nabbed the advantage in 23 minutes, despite Derby’s dominance.

Joe Mason was first to a Kenny Miller drive that rebounded off a post and the ball was tucked under Frank Fielding to give Cardiff a surprise lead after 23 minutes. It was remarkable that Derby had conceded the lead, given the possession and chances that the visitors had fashioned.

Derby fought back with Hendrick missing a simple headed chance to score, Naylor rasped a shot just over and several further promising attacks came to nothing. Cardiff held their lead until the break and Derby only had themselves to blame for having nothing to show from a busy first half.

Right-back John Brayford appeared at the start of the second half, replacing his injured understudy Tom Naylor. Jamie Ward was soon limping too and Steve Davies replaced him.

The Rams were then undone by a sucker-punch, as Bluebirds’ defender Mark Hudson lobbed the Rams’ keeper Frank Fielding from 60 yards. Frankie cleared the ball downfield from the edge of his area when it would have been wiser to boot it high and wide into touch.

The ball stayed in play and (with only a token Rams’ presence near Hudson) the Rams’ keeper was immediately caught out. From well inside the City half, the Bluebirds’ centre-half eyed Fielding still retreating towards his goal, well off his line. The ball was thumped true and straight. It sailed into the Derby net, followed shortly after by an inverted, tangled-up Fielding: 2-0 to Cardiff.

Frankie is now destined to become a football newsreel figure of fun just as has Neil Sullivan after David Beckham’s long-range classic lob from the early days of the England and Manchester United star’s glittering career. They are called ‘wonder goals’ and certainly take a combination of quick thinking and accuracy from the scorer - and also a crass misjudgement from a goalkeeper!

Fielding as Player of the Year? Chump of the Year more like! He’s had a good season generally but on that sort of soft decision, he is the expendable but valuable player I would sell to generate funds to buy a genuine goalscorer. That may be cruel - but it’s also realistic. Legzdins could step up successfully (and is older than Fielding) and Frank would command a reasonable fee.

Derby tried to make a fightback after that blow but couldn’t find the composure or accuracy required to profit from much good play. Steve Davies rapped in a free kick that Marshall stopped, and then the Bluebirds’ keeper pushed away Paul Green’s follow-up shot.

It was a defeat that crystallised Derby’s season; some good approach work and promising spells but ultimately there is a lack of ruthlessness and end-product.

Derby’s dearth of telling quality has often rendered them fallible despite encouraging displays and winning spells during the season. The Rams, in 14th place on Tuesday night, have long seemed destined to be onlookers when the spoils were claimed.

Now we’re just ‘passing the time’ until next August ...or the August after that one, and so on. The players will take their break and then be looking forward to that pre-season Barbados summer ‘training camp’, which one of the club’s ‘Proud Partners’ is providing. Pass the canapés, Tom!

Meanwhile, Reading have grabbed promotion as Cardiff consolidated their top-six place in beating Derby - they were 4 points clear of Middlesbrough with two games remaining.

Reading led the table in beating Forest and the Royals have shot to the top to be champions-elect. Their future looks bright; incoming owners in succession to Madejski with a transparent strategy, their apparent risk of investing in striker Jason Roberts to strengthen their challenge in January vindicated, as they have won 15 out of the 17 games since the centre-forward joined.

Southampton strengthened further this year too - even if their grip on top spot has slipped (rather in the way that Billy Davies’ Derby promotion side dipped after January ‘strengthening). The 2012 squad outlay will be chickenfeed in comparison to their forthcoming Premier League income.

Manager Clough couldn’t add players of that quality to push Derby upwards; a Commons and a Howard, added judiciously at a short-term cost or a bargain price, would have changed Derby’s season, as the newly-established work ethic and honesty now cries out for greater craft and a little more muscle.

Clough was clearly smarting after the defeat at Cardiff from the profligate nature of his team’s performance. He could only reflect on might-have-beens that prevent the Rams from taking advantage when they had the upper hand in the game for long spells. Lack of quality and ruthlessness again held the team back from merely an attractive performance to an effective one.

Realistically, Derby remained well off the pace in terms of the club’s situation from where GSE said they would be by 2012. Next season was originally cited by Mr Glick as the Rams’ return to the top flight, to be followed by consolidation among the big boys in GSE’s initial five-year plan.

There’s no ‘top-six’ promise from Tom for 2012-13; indeed fans learned from him at a forum this month that the solution is now to stick another five years onto that familiar (2008) answer to the question: ‘where will the club be in five years’ time?’ So we may well anticipate several similar ‘Cinderella’ seasons to the one we have just witnessed. How long is a piece of string?

Clough knows he needs more attacking quality but that costs money and the current ownership regime wish to tread water. They extol the prospect of ‘year-on-year’ improvement as an allusion to success, whilst executing a strategy based on future financial controls applicable to Football League clubs.

That ‘year-on-year’ mantra is used regularly but it all seems more and more like the GSE watchwords for a comfortable, risk-free repose in their Championship residency.

A 10-year plan to get promotion is a pie-in-the-sky strategy. Ask the chairmen of Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Norwich, WBA and others about that - and they would ask their comments to be kept ‘off the record’. Sitting on Football League committees setting rules for clubs below the elite won’t fill Pride Park Stadium or make Derby a ‘global brand’, Mr Glick.

Tighten that wage budget even further and add more debt through a further £8-10m input from the investment group to make up the operational shortfall of plodding along in the Championship. That’s the immediate horizon for Derby County though the ‘jam tomorrow’ of a self-sustaining and Academy-rich club is the model we’re regularly told is football’s salvation.

The Rams now had two games left this season and could theoretically finish anywhere from 16th to 8th spot in the Championship. Progress on previous seasons of mediocre achievement has been registered - so credit is due to Clough and his backroom staff on making the most of small resources.

There was good and bad news for Rams fans in the run-up to the final away game of the season at Pompey; Jamie Ward signed a new two-year deal with a further year’s option whilst Paul Green declined a new contract offer from Derby County and has played his last match for the Rams.

Ward’s hard-working, persistent style has been effective for Derby and Nigel Clough has rehabilitated him since he came to Derby on loan 13 months ago as a Sheffield United outcast under then-Blades’ boss Micky Adams. Jamie now needs to add a few more goals and stay injury-free, as he can be a pest to the opposition and a darting, busy player of the kind fans warm to.

The versatile Paul Green will depart on a free transfer and that will leave gaps in the Rams’ squad as he’s able to operate in the centre, at right-back or on the flank. Manager Clough said some time ago that he hoped to pick up ‘a younger version’ of Green but they don’t grow on ‘Trees’, as Tyson’s sporadic and inconsequential flank and central displays have demonstrated.

Green was signed by Paul Jewell, no doubt on a Premier League salary; Jewell was good at spending GSE’s money freely and Clough does not have the same budget.

If Nigel can nab as good a player to replace Greenie for the free transfer that brought the Irishman to Derby from Doncaster Rovers, or make a snip acquisition from a lower-league side who can adapt as Brayford and Bryson have done in their positions, Clough will have done very well.

It’s disappointing that Derby will lose a reliable midfield fulcrum like Green; if he goes to a rival Championship ‘contender’ for better wages, the number of disgruntled Derby fans will no doubt multiply. The improving Craig Bryson and young buck Jeff Hendrick should continue to develop and will form Clough’s midfield base - unless they too are tempted away by an ambitious club.

Derby will certainly need some more midfield steel and experience to go alongside them, rather than expecting newly-blooded youngsters to do as well as Green and Bryson have through a hard Championship campaign.

Paul Green wasn’t selected for the Rams’ final away game of 2011-12 at Fratton Park, Portsmouth; the manager added young midfielder Will Hughes to the squad along with boy wonder Mason Bennett. Hughes had this week helped Derby reserves to secure a League Cup win over Sunderland with a goal in the 3-2 victory.

The injured Tom Naylor was replaced by John Brayford and Steve Davies returned to the side. Portsmouth, with ownership worries along with a £60m debt to resolve as they face up to life in the third tier, included ex-Derby misfit Luke Varney in their starting line-up - but could not field current Derby misfit Chris Maguire due to the exclusion clause in his loan deal.

Manager Nigel Clough wanted his players to maintain their performance level for the remainder of the season and Portsmouth, hanging onto a Championship life by a thread, had the incentive of attempting an unlikely Great Escape.

Sunshine and rain combined to make it a quick, slippery surface for the players to contend with and for the referee to adjudge error or intent with the usual inconsistency.

Clough wasn’t to be disappointed, as Derby put in an excellent performance to win 2-1 to record the ‘double’ over Portsmouth. Whilst other results served to seal Pompey’s expected fate at the bottom of the table, a first-half headed goal from the reliable Jake Buxton and then a Steve Davies penalty helped the South coast club through the trapdoor.

Davies is now Derby’s top scorer with 12 goals to his credit and after such a serious injury setback, Steve has had a successful season.

It was a good all-round Derby performance, even though Portsmouth provided spirited, sometimes feisty opposition on their home Championship swansong. Derby had to deploy second-choice goalkeeper Adam Legzdins after the break, as Frank Fielding was struggling with a strain.

Leggy got a kick in the head for his trouble in one goalmouth skirmish but came through the game with credit. Luke Varney’s 70th-minute equaliser pepped up Pompey for five minutes until Davies slotted home the winner from the spot after Jamie Ward had been flattened.

The Rams might have made more of their good play but as ever, good approach play wasn’t matched with the necessary finish, which meant they had to live on their nerves with only a narrow advantage to show for their superiority.

The wayward Robinson and off-beam Tyson were Derby’s unreliable culprits and fans will continue to wonder ‘what if...’ had the Rams signed a goalscorer to claim another dozen or so goals during the season. Derby at least pushed past Nigel Clough’s initial post-survival target of 60 points, having easing up to 11th place in the Championship table on 63 points.

Pompey will accompany Doncaster Rovers and Coventry City on the League One route map next season. The Sky Blues are plagued by severe financial woes under the custodianship of the unloved SISU consortium, which the equally unloved Jeremy Keith at one time intended to inflict upon Derby County.

The route back to prosperity and progress for Pompey and Coventry may be a long and troubled one, as these proud and traditional clubs fall foul of today’s financial straits.

Reading claimed the Championship title whilst Southampton and West Ham fight for the second automatic promotion spot. Black pool and Birmingham City secured play-off places and Cardiff City and Middlesbrough will scrap for 6th place in the final reckoning next weekend.

Wolves have been relegated from the Premier League to join our fixture list; The Blades and the Owls will fight to also gain promotion to the Championship, whilst (shudder) franchise football club MK Dons could win through to the second tier via the play-offs.

For Derby fans, they must wait until next Saturday to see if the Rams can polish off Posh and make a top 10 finish, before passing the time until August arrives. Hopefully with some further judicious squad strengthening alongside the retention of key players, Clough’s men can make a better stab at the consistency needed to achieve tangible rewards and reach the Premier League.

So, who is your Player of the Year? I think it’s a straight contest between Jason Shackell and Craig Bryson. Shackell shows strength and consistency in central defence and Bryson has flowered in the Championship, showing skill and industry in equal measure. Vote for Craig!

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RamsWeek 17 last season saw promise and then disappointment for Derby fans. Battling to haul themselves well clear of the drop zone, the Rams fought for a hard-earned goalless draw at top-of-the-table QPR and pooped the Londoners’ expected promotion party.

Derby’s recovery melted away like ‘ice in the sun’ in summery conditions a few days later, as play-off bound Burnley cruised to a 4-2 win at Pride Park Stadium. A spirited opening saw Robinson give Derby an early lead, for Burnley to equalise within minutes. Jamie Ward restored Derby’s lead but he was later sent off - then the Clarets took a grip on the game.

Derby’s defence had shortcomings with Russell Anderson filling in at left back, the lack of cover was exposed and struggling captain Shaun Barker was promptly booked in for his knee operation in a bid to get him fit for the 2011-12 campaign.

The Rams had yet to secure mathematical safety from relegation as the season reached its climax and fans watched rival clubs sharing the spoils.

 

Photo: Action Images



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