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Old One Eye's Match Report - Derby Dig Deep To Beat Blues!
Old One Eye's Match Report - Derby Dig Deep To Beat Blues!
Sunday, 7th Aug 2011 13:51 by Old One Eye

Nigel Clough wanted his team to hit the ground running and although there was an early hiccup - his charges dug deep and gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about. As always, Old One Eye was there for RamZone!

 

Derby County v Birmingham City 

Pride Park Stadium, Derby

6th August 2011 - 3pmAttendance: 27210 (4015 visitors)

 

Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Preston)

 

Teams – OOE’s Rams Player Ratings:

 

Derby County:

Fielding(6); Brayford(6), Anderson(5) (O’Brien 35(7)), Shackell(9), Kilbane(6); Bailey(6) (Hendrick 83), Croft(8), Bryson(5), B Davies(7); Ward(7) (Robinson 78),S Davies(7).

Unused Subs: Legzdins, Maguire.

 

Birmingham City:

Myhill, Carr, Caldwell, Ridgewell, Burke, Beausejour, Mutch, Gomis, Rooney, Fahey (Wood 60), C Davies

Unused Subs: Murphy, Doyle, Dann, Redmond.

 

Goals:

C.Davies 19' (Blues), J.Shackell 26' (Rams), S.Davies 42' (Rams)

 

Old One Eye’s Match Report:

Davies Stunner Gives Rams Fans Cause For Optimism

What do you do with your summers?

Old One-Eye usually sits at home moping for the duration, blinking at the sun whenever it chooses to make a fleeting appearance and waiting for August to arrive.

All the while he tries to forget - to erase the memory of previous campaigns, which sometimes start promisingly but which all too often are heading in the belly-up direction by the first week in October.

Drinking helps too.

The fixture lists seem to come out earlier each year – if memory serves me correctly I think this season’s one was published shortly after Christmas – and Rams fans instantly take note of when the games against Forest and Leeds are played.

A mental note of points in the bag – that’s 12 banked for sure – and then the eye wanders back up to the top of the list again. Birmingham City at home – could be worse – it could be a good team.

Reality sets in within seconds. Birmingham City were a pretty decent outfit for most of last season and very nearly avoided the drop from the Premier League. What’s more, they are League Cup holders, having seen off the mighty Arsenal reserves back in February at Wembley, and because of that they will shortly be playing in Europe - briefly. The nearest the Rams have come to Europe in recent decades is Brighton.

The cups that often cheer might well have been poisoned chalices for Blues  because as well as their League Cup triumph, a decent run to the quarter finals in the FA Cup ensured that two games a week became the norm rather than the exception. As it was, when the sharp end of last season arrived, Birmingham faltered and a Derby-esque solitary point from the last six fixtures sealed their fate.

If things seemed bad then, they suddenly got a whole lot worse for the Blue Noses. The ‘For Sale’ signs went up, players and manager alike were flogged off and the main club shareholder suddenly found himself on the wrong end of a bunch of charges with respect to financial irregularities. Carson Yeung might have to be careful not to drop the soap, if things turn out as badly for him as they did for a trio of ‘Amigos’ a little closer to home not too many years ago.

Where were we? Oh yes, football.

Derby’s seemingly more affluent neighbours Leicester City and Nottingham Forest spent the summer making wholesale changes. Leicester City finally swapped the Theatre of Crisps for the world's largest Duty Free Shop and Sven bought in new players by the shopping-trolley load.

Meanwhile, on Trent-side, Nigel Doughboy finally grew tired of Billy ‘Sue you, knee me, Jimmy’ Davies and replaced him with a representative from an umbrella company.

Derby have made changes of their own – most notably bringing to the club no-nonsense defender Jason Shackell and international centurion Kevin Kilbane to shore up a defence which had developed an alarming habit in recent seasons of conceding goals when there wasn’t any danger of doing so in the first place. The season’s opener between Derby and Birmingham had all the makings of a classic – a side without an attack against one without a defence.

Today’s referee, Neil Swarbrick, needed no introduction – well, not to Kilbane, anyway. When Kevin was on loan at Huddersfield last season, he somehow got away with shoving Mr Swarbrick in the chest during the play-off semi-final against Bournemouth.

The ref’s reward for his ineptitude on that occasion is that he has just been promoted to the ‘Elite’ list of match officials. I knew that there had to be an explanation for Stuart Attwell.

Rumour has it that decent pies are now on sale at Pride Park Stadium, and that Holland’s have replaced the previous manufacturers, Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett. That, I’m afraid, is a treat in store for another day because by the time Old One-Eye and the Memsahib had made it into the ground, it was almost kick-off time.

Earlier we had joined the thousands queuing at the turnstiles, only to almost immediately join thousands more queuing at the ticket office because the electronic admission system had failed to read our season tickets.

Mr Swarbrick made one final check that Kilbane was nowhere near him and we were under way.

Both sets of fans were in fine voice and there was a cracking atmosphere inside Pride Park as Derby took the game to their opponents in the opening moments and forced an early corner. Lee Croft, looking half the man and twice the player he used to be, got on the end of Ben Davies’s delivery but sent the ball high over the bar.

Derby’s early tactics – or rather tactic – seemed to amount to giving the ball to James Bailey who would immediately over-hit his pass in the general vicinity of full-back John Brayford’s mum, sitting on Row Q of the Toyota Stand.

Birmingham, on the other hand, passed the ball amongst themselves much more effectively before making an equally telling pass into the crowd at the opposite end of the pitch.

Ben Davies almost wriggled clear on the left only to be clearly obstructed by the referee, but gradually the visitors began to impose themselves in midfield with Chilean international Jean Beausejour beginning to find acres of space on the wing.

Jordan Mutch met one pinpoint centre perfectly, only for Frank Fielding to turn his solid header onto the crossbar. Moments later, Curtis Davies fired The Blues ahead when he met Mutch’s corner to head powerfully past Fielding. It was no more than Birmingham deserved.

The Rams simply rolled their sleeves up, shrugged off the disappointment and dragged themselves back into the game. What had looked like a group of individuals who were waiting to be introduced to one-another suddenly became a cohesive unit.

Bailey for once found Mrs Brayford’s son and when Derby’s Player of the Year was unceremoniously felled, Ben Davies’s inch-perfect cross was met beyond the far post by the head of Derby skipper Jason Shackell and The Rams were level.

Russell Anderson bowed out with a leg injury after 35 minutes to join a familiarly long list of incapacitated central defenders. His replacement, young Irishman Mark O’Brien, filled his shoes splendidly and seemed to forge an instant understanding with the experienced Shackell. One for the future, perhaps, but if he continues to perform with the assurance he showed today, he will be a first team regular for a long time to come.

With four minutes to go before half time, Craig Bryson played the ball in to the feet of Steve Davies 25 yards from goal. It hardly looked a chance but as the Blues defence backed off, Davies unleashed a thunderbolt which screamed into the top corner of the net.

Birmingham’s keeper Boaz Myhill was as much a spectator as the 4,000 or so sat behind him - all it needed to be perfect was the voice of Graham Richards saying “Pick that one out – not a chance!” It was that good a strike.

That, basically, was that. From a footballing perspective, Derby was much better in the second half than they were in the first, yet conversely were far more profligate with their finishing.

Jamie Ward somehow contrived to miss two sitters from point-blank range – the first was an air shot worthy of the most occasional weekend hacker and the second a header which smacked against the underside of the bar.

Birmingham too rattled the woodwork mid-way through the second half when Chris Burke’s cross evaded Fielding and rebounded to safety off the far post. When I say ‘safety’ it actually fell perfectly for Stephen Carr on the edge of the six yard area, which is pretty much the same thing. Carr, predictably, found the back of the stand.

With regard to a recent court case which saw a judge ruling that a defendant’s use of the term ‘Jock’ could be construed as racist (all right, there were OTHER words used as well, such as ‘tennis’), referee Mr Swarbrick just might find himself in hot water with Plaid Cymru.

There were three players by the name of Davies on the pitch, and all three found their way into his notebook. The other player to incur the ire of the man in black was Jamie Ward, who once had a holiday in Rhyl. Probably.

Nigel Clough introduced Theo Robinson for the final 15 minutes, and the man who can miss chances faster than anyone else in the Championship ran Birmingham’s back four ragged.

Three times in as many minutes he won corners to take the pressure off Derby’s beleaguered defence as The Rams strived to run the clock down. There was one late shout for a penalty for The Blues, but the referee ruled that it was a case of ‘ball to hand’.

The game ended as it had begun – with Derby on the front foot. The Blues fans to their credit and to a man sang ‘Keep right on to the end of the road’.

It’s that way, and it’s called the A38.

Old One-Eye's Man of the Match:

Jason Shackell – locked up the defence splendidly.

 

Manager’s Reaction:

Speaking to the official site Nigel praised his team’s spirit after the opening day victory:

“We showed so much heart, character and spirit”.

"To come back from behind against such an accomplished side was brilliant and the lads deserve a huge amount of credit for it. And after going in front we had to dig in and see the game out, which we did really well.”

"The effort the players put in was second to none and there were plenty of them who were shattered going into the final ten minutes.”

"It was a massive effort and I don't think we had a bad player out there today. We didn't see games out enough last season, so it was very pleasing to see us do that today."

"Jason (Shackell) lead by example. He won almost all of his headers, and the same goes for Mark O'Brien too who was excellent alongside him when he came on.”

"He is a leader and with respect to the other players, we see Shaun Barker, when he is fit, and Jason as our first-choice centre-back pairing. But we would love the other defenders we have to be challenging and pushing them all the way.”

"Jason was brilliant today and it was great for him to get off to a winning start here."

Next Match:

Derby County vs. Shrewsbury

League Cup

7:45pm Tuesday July 9th

Pride Park Stadium

 

 

Photo: Action Images



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