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So Derby.... What Are You Made Of?
So Derby.... What Are You Made Of?
Saturday, 22nd Jan 2011 08:27 by Paul Mortimer

That’s the question Rams fans are asking their players today, wondering how their team will square up to an in-form Forest side.

Nothingham Forest, under the guidance of Championship play-off specialist Billy Davies, are again handily placed at the business end of the table whilst Derby County’s dalliance with the top four proved as flimsy as their porous defence.

It’s been a topsy-turvy year so far for Derby, mostly on the turvy side with a series of ineffectual performances, schoolboy defending handing the opposition every advantage. We’ve suffered an infamous FA Cup defeat at the hands of non-League Crawley Town and a weak response in defeat at Millwall.

Apart from the ‘recovery’ win at Preston North End on New Year’s Day, which followed a comprehensive defeat at the City Ground in which the Rams started dreadfully and then failed to improve, Derby’s season has continued to come apart at the seams.

After the 5-2 towelling from a Forest side that had pace and purpose in equal measure to the Rams’ dithering and ponderous approach to recent games, Derby players have an early chance to show what they are made of and bounce back to better form against their closest rivals.

Being in need of fresh faces and more strength in depth in all departments hasn’t seen Derby County shake off that ponderous demeanour off the field either, it took three weeks into the transfer window, (at the time of writing) for the club to make a signing and others will go down to the wire.

The man whose goal clinched the last Rams-Forest game at Pride Park Stadium, Rob Hulse, is long gone and Derby replaced their target man and leading striker with two loanee forwards of differing styles - Shefki Kuqi and Luke Moore. Neither was more than a temporary solution.

Many Rams fans maintain that Kuqi was the vital cog that facilitated the enterprising and attractive football that swept teams away during October and November. His hold-up play and physical nuisance-value enabled ‘The Three Musketeers’ - Bueno, Commons and Cywka, to pick up the ball on the move, and derange defences to create and convert chances.

Derby scored a hatful of goals and climbed into the Championship top four but those loan forwards have returned to their parent club and the team’s heartbeat is weaker. The opposition has the ball more, they cause more danger and pressure, and with Derby’s uncertain defending, frequent defeats have eroded the positive goal difference and pushed the Rams back down the table.

Manager Clough has publicly blasted players in a similar manner in which he berated them a year ago during a bad run; there are only so many times you can issue the same ultimatum. It’s either time for some players to find more from within themselves or, as Clough has put it more than once, ‘ship out’.

The second option to ditch the failures is fine - as long as the club facilitates some spending on another crop of players, or buys in a better region of the transfer market than has been evident for the past two seasons.

However, the Rams are currently poor relations of the East Midlands’ triumvirate of Forest, Leicester and Derby. We have the biggest fanbase but the salient measure is in terms of expenditure on wages, transfers and the club’s relative boldness of pursuit of the prize – finishing in the top six and possible reclamation of their place in the top flight of English football.

Whilst Billy Davies will never be happy with the level of expenditure allowed and will rail against any intervention in how his club controls the football side of things, he has acquired some players on substantial fees and costly loans in comparison to Nigel’s frugal 2-year economy drive.

Leicester, with the itinerant Sven Goran Eriksson in the hot seat this season, has visible ambition and high finance behind the club. They’ve nabbed two international-class Premier League strikers on loan in Yakubu and Vassell among other signings since last summer; they might allow their young striker Waghorn to come on loan to Derby...they’ve sold Matty Fryatt for a good fee to Hull whilst keeping ex-Ram Stevie Howard to bolster their own forward ranks; lucky Leicester!

Today is all about restoring pride and seeing what Derby players are made of. You just can’t escape that observation after such poor recent form. It is the ‘East Midlands’ Cup Final’ and only the satisfying revenge of victory for Derby will appease the fans. They have become increasingly restless and critical of all aspects of the club during the recent rapid decline.

Players are being criticised and written off, management and tactics demeaned, and the board criticised for their tepid, slow response in terms of funding and transfer activity.

The club, through Clough’s diligence and patience, has arrived at the desired point of a lowered player wage bill and substantial dead-wood clearance from the remnants of the Davies & Jewell squads. Now, the cautious, low-budget transfer policy needs revising - otherwise, the manager will not record any significant progress. This squad isn’t a promotion outfit, far from it.

There’s potentially a whole other article in dissecting exactly where this Derby squad is in terms of real team-building for a successful Championship campaign followed by Premier League consolidation. It’s hardly comfortable for Rams fans to acknowledge that both Trees and Foxes are further down that road, on current evidence.

For the moment, it is about what these current Derby players can do to put the skids under Forest and claim the bragging rights for the rest of the season, and for them to restore the Brian Clough Trophy to its rightful home at Pride Park Stadium. Do we have a chance of beating Forest on current form? Doubtful - but then, since when have ‘derby’ games followed current form? So - again the theme asks: what are these players made of?

Central defence must be vigilant and ruthless - they must tighten up.  I’m hoping it will be composed of Miles Addison alongside Shaun Barker, as the young giant has been one of the few rays of light since his return from injury this year. Barker has immense talent and had dominated games; with the right partner, he will recover his form.

Today is the perfect time for him to restate his credentials as one of the best defenders in the League; a goal wouldn’t go amiss from a set piece either, but perhaps that is Miles’ speciality against the Trees (unless Stuart Attewell is the referee!)

The full-backs (no, I’m not counting Dean Leacock; he’s a liability on the flank, and Green is needed in midfield!) preferably Brayford and Moxey - must play. We need the proper balance on the flanks and they must achieve their primary objective, to restrict the opposing attack and deny space.

The Derby flanks have been shockingly open recently and leaking soft goals is a bad habit. Forest’s young, quick, inventive wide players won the battles at the City Ground and there must be no repeat of the slack start and sloppy invitations to cross.

Midfield must be integrated and alert; Savage needs to keep it snappy and simple, Bailey and Green must provide the legs, speed and coverage to move the ball forward with purpose. Hopefully the addition of Davies will have a positive effect even if not immediate impact today.

If the attacking trio of Bueno, Commons and Cywka lock in together, they are too much of a handful for teams to cope with. We know that the battering Ram of Shefki Kuqi bought the time and space for the trio to play in, as Kuqi occupied defenders; Luke Moore’s skill and pace did not quite give the same blend.

Chris Porter, already on the mark since his recent return to the side, is not a formidable target man and so the midfielders must ensure that he is not isolated.

Derby need to start with purpose and ensure that they restrict Forest; then, if the skilful, deadly version of Kris Commons turns up, he will hold the key to success.

Whatever hackneyed taunts Trees fans hurl at the Ram’s top scorer, through their regret and failure in never seeing the best of him at the City Ground (except when he’s scored for Derby!), there’s no doubt that he’s a vastly improved player under Clough. He is neither fat nor lazy, and could on his day beat Forest or any other team virtually on his own.

It was Commons that delivered the perfect near-post cross from which Hulse buried the decisive header in Derby’s 1-0 victory in this fixture last season. It was a tight, fractious affair that spilled over into hostility when Trees players took exception to Jay McEveley’s relaxed attitude to taking a throw-in, as Derby ran down the game.

The resulting fracas added to the FA charges levelled at both clubs after their altercations at the City Ground earlier that season, ensuring further disciplinary charges and fines. Then Billy Davies made scarcely credible legal accusations of assault by Nigel Clough - which the wee Scot has neither justified nor withdrawn in all this time. He looks idiotic and petty.

Billy tries to score moral points all the time but it was the Rams that took the points in that sweet but hard-fought victory.

The Rams were trundling along in the lower reaches of the table last season when they beat an in-form Forest side. Forest reached the play-offs to be easily overturned by Ian Holloway’s surprise package from Blackpool, whilst Derby struggled (as usual) to secure their Championship place.

It can’t be denied that the Trees have stormed up the table in 2010-11 and are again playing tenacious, cohesive football in the style of their manager. It can’t be denied either that Rams fans will hope that Forest blow up again when it comes to the final reckoning in May!

Derby are better off than last season; points; places and performances confirm that. They do desperately need the tonic of a win. At the moment, Mr Glick is failing to bring in reinforcements so Clough has to be over-reliant on young players or those still regaining fitness after absences, in order to retain the slender margin of improvement over the club’s placing last season.

It’s debatable just how many of these Derby players will stay in Nigel Clough’s plans if the current inconsistency is prolonged - but there is no doubt that Saturday is their biggest opportunity to show exactly what they are made of and to carve themselves out a little place in Derby folk lore.

Take that place, you Rams; seize the moment - be one of Nigel’s famous men that chopped down the Trees in January 2011!

COME ON YOU RAMS!

 

 

Photo: Action Images



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