What I.Saw: This Is Last Years Team With Last Years Habits
New season, the sun shone on the iPro stadium. New pitch, resplendent in colour if not in width, it certainly looked less wide than before.
New manager, Nigel Pearson starting with brawn over brilliance or so it seemed.
Out of the starting blocks faster than Olympic sprinters the Rams attack, Cyrus Christie and Nick Blackman a threat on the right as crosses whipped in find first Darren Bent and then Tom Ince, half chances but good ones not taken.
The first five minutes are ours. Then we fade to grey.
Brighton with their fluorescent green bottoms shine with slick passing and movement as they catch us on the break.
A series of corners, our stall is set out; all eleven White Shirts defending in our own area, the ghost of last year is still present.
The Seagulls finish the half in the ascendancy yet the score remains goalless.
And in a rerun of nearly all last season, we start the Second 45 like sleepwalkers, twelve seconds on the clock and Scott Carson does exceptionally well to tip Tomer Hemed’s dipping volley over the bar.
We are an unbalanced; our right capable of giving it a run, our left meanwhile is a vacuum of life in the sun.
On the hour, the loudest cheer greets the dragging off of Bradley Johnson from our gaping left and fans favourite Will Hughes enters the fray. It’s unfair on Johnson, whose biggest crime could only be that he didn't impose himself on the game often caught between two of the opposition with little help.
Hughes brief 30 minute cameo would produce one of the games more interesting stats, he managed more tackles (5) than any other player on the pitch even those who managed the whole game.
Managing the Rams this season I was expecting Pearson to play high tempo, closing down, in your face football, it's not there so far, we chase shadows that drift past with ease.
Our defence error prone though survives. Goal line clearances from first Christie then Jason Shackell.
Sixty Eight minutes gone and the fading Blackman gives way to Chris Martin, a big man soon back to his falling down when touched by a feather routine. Routines the referee, who had a good game throughout, largely ignored.
Our last throw of the dice, Jacob Butterfield for Ince, long range shots over the bar.
We hang on.
Right at the death Bent has a final chance, a downward header, a merest glance, point blank range, David Stockdale keeps it out. It would have been a steal.
Reflections, we are a work in progress, this is last years team with last years habits, we didn't look fitter, we didn't (apart from the first five minutes) look sharper, we didn’t look better organised.
And we didn't lose; now there's a positive to end on!
Match Highlights:
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