Derby County looked to build on an encouraging start to the season, with a Carling Cup tie against League Two opposition and a visit to Watford in the Championship.

The first news of the week put a slight downer on the impressive victory over Birmingham City on opening day, as Nathan Tyson was ruled out for a month with a groin strain. Injuries are mounting up and interviews with the manager already have the subtext of a stretched squad trying to cope.

The form of young defender Mark O’Brien is a boost, as is the return of Chris Riggott. Clough has allowed Miles Addison to go out on loan but as well as having Russell Anderson sidelined he is short of defenders through injury - amongst them, captain Shaun Barker is ruled out for a month.

Chris Riggott’s long-term back injury is apparently cured but his new niggles aren’t. He isn’t yet fit to participate in first-team games (currently, he’s out with an Achilles injury) but has signed an appearance-based one-year contract with the Rams.

Serial injury case Russell Anderson has a groin pull and will be missing from Clough’s defensive choices for a spell, too. Jake Buxton - with just one substitute’s appearance to his credit last season has groin, back and stomach problems and Dean Leacock has a knee injury.

With the likes of John Brayford having had to swap positions to centre half to cater for injuries during last season, we appear to be in the same position - with perpetually unfit centre-halves and still without adequate cover at right-back. Squad balance and the injury rate continue to be major concerns at Derby County.

For all the summer hype, the club hasn’t addressed some basic shortcomings. Transfer talk has slowed down, though the Rams are said to be interested in 22-year old Stoke City defender Ryan Shotton. Other clubs are in the frame for him, however, and the player could cost £1m.

Other rumours suggest that the Foxes’ redoubtable Steve Howard could return to Pride Park Stadium. Most fans would welcome that as a short-term measure and manager Clough didn’t deny it was a possibility. Apart from his previous great success at Derby, an effective short-term cameo role for Steve could mirror the impact that Shefki Kuqi had on Derby’s attack last year.

The Carling Cup 1st Round tie at home to Shrewsbury Town arrived on Tuesday with Derby having 10 players unavailable through injury or international calls. With Ward and Hendrick on international duty, Clough drafted in Pearson, O’Brien, Robinson and Maguire (for his Derby debut) into his starting line-up; he retained the same back five and goalkeeper from the Brum game but Bryson and Bailey were rested on the bench after Saturday’s exertions.

Steve Davies and Robinson led the Rams’ attack. The bench also included 15-year old striker Mason Bennett, who has recently impressed in the England U-17 ranks. His mum and Headmaster had signed the appropriate letters of consent! The 7 Derby subs included other Academy lads, as Darren Wassall’s youth work begins to bear some home-grown fruit. The Shrews included former Derby Academy product Lionel Ainsworth.

There was a healthy Shrewsbury contingent on a fine night at Pride Park Stadium, and (apart from the stupidity of booing their ex-star Ben Davies), made themselves heard after 15 minutes when Marvin Morgan was allowed to head home from a corner to give the visitors a 15th-minute lead.

Home fans were temporarily cheered when Notts County took the lead at the City Ground at the same time - but at PPS, Shrewsbury kept the game tight early on and prevented Derby County from building their moves to gain any impetus. The Rams then had an escape when the referee ignored his assistant’s signal for a Shrews’ penalty, for handball after 26 minutes.

A sluggish Derby performance was underlined when James Collins took advantage of an Ainsworth cross and a sleepy home defence to head Shrewsbury into a 2-0 lead with 33 minutes gone. It was 3-0 only 4 minutes later, as Morgan scored his second. Clough heard his first boos of the season and his team’s performance had plunged from tentative to turgid.

The merciful release of the half-time whistle came and Derby had been outfought, out-thought and outplayed. The defence was a shambles, and the experiment of playing the clueless Stephen Pearson in a ‘holding’ role was a disaster. Morgan and Ainsworth had caused all sorts of problems as the Shrews dominated the play and they picked lazy, inept Derby to pieces.

Boos echoed around the sparsely-populated stadium at the interval as Clough and his staff set about waking up his players. They seemed to have remembered that it was a matchday because they reduced the arrears via a Chris Maguire header immediately upon the restart. Then, after a bright spell for 15 minutes, the Rams faded and the Shrews matched Derby stride for stride.

Jason Shackell retired injured on 75 minutes (nothing changes; we just cannot keep central defenders fit) but Derby pulled another goal back on 77 minutes when Theo Robinson fired home.

Town now had to fight a rearguard action as Derby pressed for an equaliser. Town held out, however, and Derby’s wretched recent Carling Cup 1st Round record was extended to three defeats in a row against League Two opposition.

It was a deserved defeat for a complacent, inadequate performance - Derby didn’t play with the commitment or intensity that conquered Birmingham City so they paid the price for taking the opposition too lightly. The alarming lack of desire, especially in the first-half was a shock to fans after the successful non-stop performance just three days beforehand against the Bluenoses.

The Shrews’ contingent of the meagre 7,073 crowd had their moment at the full-time whistle and Derby’s ideas of any Cup entertainment (or revenue) were once again postponed until January and the FA Cup 3rd Round. It was a dismal night for Derby die-hards and repeats of this half-hearted performance in the Championship would create considerable supporter disaffection.

Manager Clough was “disappointed, angry and frustrated”, so at least club and fans were in just the same mood. “Sometimes you can talk until you are blue in the face but the players then have to go out and do it when they go out on the pitch”, Clough said. It looks like the manager had to post his first “that was unacceptable” volley of the new season, just two games in.

It is incumbent upon club and manager to assemble an adequate squad; the summer transfer window closes in two weeks’ time and there’s still work to be done. Ohh…and if I were to hear the fateful backstop comment that ‘there’s always the emergency loan window’, I think I’ll scream!

Fans want to be convinced that Clough can elicit consistently committed, intelligent and disciplined displays from his players. The Derby squad is now his creation and there are virtually no overpaid, under-performing passengers from past regimes for him to cope with and utilise out of necessity.

For all Derby’s early-summer signing frenzy, they failed to secure the services of an influential, experienced midfielder, adequate cover at full-back or a proper centre-forward. Such experience and specialised qualities are still needed. The loss of key players and lack of management action until late last season almost cost Derby County very dear - so the time to build is now.

Media reports suggested that MLS club Vancouver Whitecaps were among clubs willing to offer free-agent Owen Hargreaves a contract after his release from Manchester Utd; hopefully, Whitecaps’ stakeholder Jeff Mallett  will urge his colleagues in the DCFC consortium to be similarly ambitious at Derby to recruit experienced, influential players to improve the team.

Clough offered various comments about current player fitness problems and injury concerns - just what fans want to hear after a month’s alleged pre-season conditioning and practice. If Clough says that Shrewsbury played “exactly as we expected”, then why couldn’t Derby anticipate this and display enough hunger to overcome a team that plays two divisions beneath them?

There were plenty of goals and shocks in the competition elsewhere with the likes of Ipswich, Hull, Coventry, Barnsley, Blackpool and Portsmouth also being dumped out by lower-league opposition. Rams fans couldn’t even take solace in Notts County overcoming the Trees, as their see-saw game ended with Forest snatching a last-gasp win on penalties after extra time.

Whilst the Rams team proceeded to falter again at the first hurdle in the Carling Cup, the club’s latest internationals had a better midweek experience. Young midfielder Jeff Hendrick earned his first Republic of Ireland U-21 cap in Tuesday’s 2-1 friendly win over Austria. Hendrick played the first 45 minutes of the fixture.

Jamie Ward became a full Northern Ireland international with a late substitute appearance in his country’s 4-0 victory over the Faroe Isles in a Euro 2012 qualifying game. Derby’s 19-year old goalkeeper James Severn has gone out on loan until the New Year, he’s at Blue Square North side Eastwood Town to gain more first-team experience.

After sections of the population in various locations indulged in their version of a forced ‘supermarket dash’, there had been cancellation of some midweek fixtures, including the England-Holland friendly match at Wembley and Watford’s Carling Cup tie at Bristol Rovers.

The Rams’ game at Watford’s Vicarage Road went ahead as planned on Saturday, however, even if manager Clough might well have wished for more postponements, as he again bemoaned having 10 players missing through injury.

The manager did have Jamie Ward and Jeff Hendrick back from international duty; Ward started the game and Hendrick had a solid second-half in place of James Bailey, who had received an ankle knock. The Rams shrugged off the midweek disappointment against Shrewsbury with a dogged and professional performance at Watford to come away with all the points after a 1-0 win.

It wasn’t pretty, and open football was at a premium - but another Steve Davies cracker early in the second half gave Derby a lead. He received a throw-in on the right of Watford’s penalty area, pivoted and let fly with a left-footed strike that Hornets’ ‘keeper Scott Loach could only wave goodbye to on its way into the net. After all his fitness problems, Steve has a point to prove and is displaying a positive desire to make a telling contribution and provide the goals.

The Rams protected the goal with great vigour in the manner that enabled them to keep the game safe in the closing stages last week against Birmingham City. All the cheers at the final whistle came from the Derby contingent in the 12,300 crowd - and the near 1,000-strong Rams’ ‘barmy army’ had a welcome tonic after the travesty of last Tuesday’s Carling Cup defeat.

Watford set Derby plenty of problems - especially in the first half - but the Rams handled everything that was thrown at them by rediscovering all the hard work and concentration that deserted them last Tuesday evening.

Shackell and O’Brien again showed their qualities in a committed central defensive performance and Croft and Bryson worked hard. When needed, goalkeeper Fielding pulled off some fine saves and the team grafted diligently to deny Watford a comeback.

The Rams seemed to regain their collective desire - and despite close shaves, denied Watford to a man. For their reward, Derby arrived in the top three, with promoted Southampton and Brighton & Hove Albion also enjoying a 100% start. Sunday wins for Cardiff and Blackpool meant that there are now 5 clubs on 6 points at the top of the table, with the Rams in 5th position purely on alphabetical order.

Amazingly it was the first time that Derby County had won their opening two games of the season since 1973, when a certain Brian Clough was in charge. Two wins from two games is a great start in the circumstances; DirtyLeeds are in the bottom three and Forest lie are well below the Rams, already 5 points behind us. So far, so good.

The only downer at Watford was referee Derek Deadman’s performance; he has contrived to book 13 players and show 4 red cards in his first three fixtures of the new season. He booked 5 Derby players on Saturday in a game that could not be described as feisty.

The Premier League season crackled into life again this weekend with the top 4 (or top 6) for honours and European qualification - already predicted to remain largely as before. The two Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Spurs are again expected to make up the elite but the Anfield Reds and Gunners were all held to draws whilst the Spurs game was postponed.

Their final standings will be mainly governed by the outlandish expenditure that still characterises the philosophy of English top flight; Liverpool spent £50m already and has the ‘Dalglish factor’. Chelsea has changed managers and spent heavily too - they were held to a draw at Stoke.

Premier League newcomers QPR, Swansea City and Norwich City are expected to be banished back to the Championship at the first time of asking; Rangers made an unhealthy start with a 0-4 home defeat to Bolton Wanderers whilst the Canaries took a draw at Wigan. United might have spent £19m on a dodgy ‘keeper in de Gea - but they still snuck away from West Bromwich Albion with a valuable 2-1 win. The Swans must play moneybags Manchester City on Monday.

The Rams have another midweek game away at Blackpool in the Championship - and then they entertain Doncaster Rovers at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday. The Seasiders dislodged Derby from the top three, as they had also won two out of two, beating promoted Posh 2-1 on Sunday. Can Derby sustain their winning streak?

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In RamsWeek 33 last season, after a good start in the away win at Leeds United, Rams fans were left flat by a 1-0 midweek Carling Cup defeat at Crewe Alexandra and then a disappointing 1-2 reversal in the opening home fixture at the hands of Cardiff City.

 Brayford, Bailey and Roberts made home debuts and Luke Varney led Derby’s attack in Rob Hulse’s absence, and Tomasz Cywka equalised the Bluebirds’ early goal from Michael Chopra. Chris Burke scored the winner after Bywater found a Peter Whittingham shot too hot to hold and Cardiff proved stronger than Derby to claim the points.

Derby looked a little short of Cardiff’s greater quality, especially in midfield and attack and so it was a case of ‘get behind the mule’ for the Rams in 2010-11, to plough on through the season to hopefully record some progress during the campaign.

Rams fans awaited the unveiling of the new stadium statue to Clough and Taylor and the visit of ambitious Queens Park Rangers in the next week as the season was up and running.

Photo: Action Images

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