The international break gave Derby County two weeks to reflect on a wasteful defeat at Peterborough United and to assess their ongoing fitness problems.

The international break gave Derby County two weeks to reflect on a wasteful defeat at Peterborough United and to assess their ongoing fitness problems.

Manager Nigel Clough defended his decisions to include several Academy substitutes and exclude forwards Maguire and Cywka from the 16-man squad that played at London Road.

He also took a side-swipe at the recent decision by the Football League to reduce the number of permissible substitutes in League matches to five instead of seven.

"They (Maguire and Cywka) were just outside the 16, not being able to name the seven subs this season, which the chief executives in their wisdom voted for in the summer."

One wonders how much consultation (if any) was given with managers and coaches before that FL decision; I’m presuming Clough would have fought against the reduction vote, after he commented: "Yes, but you forget we are not qualified for that, are we?”

Derby fans would like to know how Tom Glick voted and for what reason. Without a reply, we might assume that it was attractive for the DCFC CEO to vote ‘yes’ because it could mean paying fewer wages and bonuses to a smaller squad reporting for duty. What was your decision, Tom?

Clough was critical of the apparently undemocratic decision: "So it is down to all these chief executives and chairmen and everything with their great record of running football clubs."

Hard to argue with the ironic comment when put like that and at least if the seven subs rule had been retained, any manager can decide whether to include all seven or not (as Clough had chosen - or had to do so - in the past).

That still doesn’t fully justify Clough’s decisions for his squad selections at Peterborough last Saturday. They were erroneous in my view and perhaps for others - in that the manager still had the clear options to pick or utilise more experienced players.

As it was, Clough chose not to avoid finishing an open and closely-fought game with half of the Academy team on the pitch; Derby’s inability to close the game down told its own story. The defeat wasn’t the only trouble Clough encountered, as he then faced an FA charge for ‘improper conduct’.

It seems that Clough’s comments to officials about the decision to award a late free kick to Posh, which led indirectly to their winning goal, weren’t appreciated. As usual, a manager will face sanction but officials remain unanswerable and do not have to explain their decisions to anyone.

News of an impending signing - despite the club’s procrastination regarding their propensity to seek reinforcements during the latest injury debacle - almost took fans by surprise. Mansfield Town’s young defender Tom Naylor is expected to join Derby on loan shortly, with a permanent move mooted for January 2012.

The 20-year old had spent time on trial at Derby with a reserves’ appearance and had attracted the attentions of several other clubs. He could provide cover for John Brayford at right-back and can also play centre-half, so Clough plans to add to his options and cover during the deep injury crisis, whilst adding the promising youngster with a view to the future.

Welcome as another squad addition is, Naylor joins the cache of young talent that the club wants to build but his signature won’t fire supporter imaginations. He’s a player of promise, but has no Championship experience; realistically, he only represents a possible solution to the right-back cover that Clough has been seeking for 6 months.

There will be an interesting twist to the Rams’ next Championship fixture, at home to Hull City on November 19th. Hull manager Nigel Pearson, who has stabilised the Tigers during the 16 months in charge at the KC Stadium, has been lured by the lucre. He’s left Hull to re-join Leicester City, the club he left in 2008 after leading the Foxes to promotion from League One.

Pearson will take coaches Steve Walsh Craig Shakespeare with him from the KC to the King Power Stadium. It left ex-Rams director Adam Pearson (no relation), the Hull City chairman, with the unwanted task of finding a new management team. I’ll bet it won’t be Billy Davies & crew!

Pompey, raided by the Trees for their manager Steve Cotterill, resolved their resulting management vacancy by appointing WBA assistant coach Michael Appleton. He was a ‘dark horse’ candidate - inexperienced but chosen above such as Steve Coppell and Sean O’Driscoll.

England had a showpiece friendly at Wembley on Saturday against World and European champions Spain, set against the backdrop of tiresome media frenzies about John Terry’s alleged racism, with football’s bureaucrats kicking around the Remembrance Day poppy ‘controversy’ for good measure.

Fabio Capello pulled off a creditable 1-0 victory courtesy of a second-half Frank Lampard goal, as he married the Three Lion’s tenacity and grit with defensive intelligence. Hard-working England seldom allowed Spain the room to demonstrate their illustrious attacking skills and England now have another home friendly against Sweden on Tuesday evening.

Scotland and the Wales had morale-boosting wins in friendlies over Cyprus and Norway respectively, whilst the Republic of Ireland registered an excellent 4-0 victory in Estonia to virtually seal a place in the 2012 European Championships.

With little real news from Pride Park Stadium the headlines, such as they were, centred on the long-awaited return to action of several key players.

For the long-term Rams’ absentees it will be ‘just like starting over’ for those squad members that haven’t seen action for several months, as their return to training was said to be similar to them undertaking pre-season preparation.

Nigel Clough anticipated that several of them will be available soon, perhaps even for the home game with Hull City when the Championship programme resumes on 19th November. Shaun Barker, John Brayford and Lee Croft may be in contention, midfielder Paul Green is stepping up his programme.

Barker and Green especially, who have been bereft of any League football during 2011-12 so far, will be eagerly added by the manager to his currently depleted squad options. There’s a reserves’ game at Sheffield United next week, when Clough may see some of his rehabilitated players return to match action.

Bailey, Riggott, Anderson, Tyson and others, including head injury victim Steve Davies, are ‘progressing well,’ whatever that means, and fans will look to Derby’s injury count being reduced to ordinary proportions soon.

The lack of strength in depth and limited Championship experience of many of the fit contenders for places will otherwise stifle any genuine - and long-awaited - Derby challenge at the right end of the table.

Getting by until the next international break, or unsuccessfully seeing out games with half a team of youngsters must become past emergencies rather than recurrent situations. A patchwork team that scrapes through will seldom carry off any honours.

The Rams are slightly behind their performance at the same stage last season and supporters now want to see their team sustaining a challenge near the top of the table.

Derby’s return to Championship action against Hull City next Saturday is generation interest, with the club expecting a 28,000 crowd at Pride Park Stadium.

Fans will anticipate a more representative first team to be fielded as regularly as possible, with a return to winning ways after the consecutive defeats suffered before the break.

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In RamsWeek 46 last year, ‘win some lose some’ was the theme. Derby travelled to Portman Road in Suffolk and recorded and impressive 2-0 win over the humourless Roy Keane’s Ipswich Town, before suffering a disappointing defeat by the same score at Leicester City.

Kris Commons had been the architect of the win at Ipswich, sweeping in both goals to help the Rams climb to 4th in the Championship table. At Leicester, the Foxes took an early grip with ?andy King giving them a 13th-minute lead, ex-Ram Steve Howard sealing the points with a penalty strike.

Shaun Barker collected his fifth booking of the season at Leicester to incur a suspension; loanee goalkeeper Frank Fielding was retained for a further month as his successful initial loan period expired.

Centre-forward Shefki Kuqi earned a recall to the Finland international squad following his fine form on loan at Derby, whilst Kris Commons’ renaissance had been noticed by Scotland manager Craig Levein and was included in the Scottish squad.

Photo: Action Images

ChesterDraws added 18:05 - Nov 14 You seem to be confusing young professionals with academy players. Doyle, Ball, Kendrick and O'Brien are all on professional contracts. Only Hughes and Bennett are academy players. Just a point like.
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pkay_brum added 16:01 - Nov 15 Academy or ex-Academy....we might agree that it's cost us points putting too many of them into the firing line at the same time! O'Brien and Hendrick have responded to the challenge in the absence of the expected first-teamers who would have been picked from a fit squad, though they too perhaps now need a breather....
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