Derby County had started the New Year in fine form with a League victory over Hull and the Cup win against Crystal Palace - and this week entertained bottom club Coventry City.

Transfer activity gathered momentum at Pride Park Stadium as the Rams received enquiries for several players, the only one most fans would miss being Republic of Ireland international midfielder Paul Green. Interest in Green has been confirmed by the club, so time will tell if he stays or goes.

Permanent or loan moves could be imminent for other players ‘beyond the fringe’ of Nigel Clough’s plans - Tomasz Cywka and Lee Croft. Additionally defender Dean Leacock’s contract was cancelled by mutual consent this week, so the further squad pruning that the club has spoken about ever since the last transfer window will have been more or less achieved.

Some of Nigel Clough’s signings are now emerging as new Derby heroes, several Academy graduates making their mark and the team have overturned their losing streak into a strong winning run. It is now very much ‘this year’s model’ as far as the manager’s plans are concerned.

The departure of Dean Leacock also signals the end of the Billy Davies contingent within the Derby County squad. His other remaining recruits, Stephen Bywater and Stephen Pearson, having had their moment of glory - and then despair - at Derby County, also left the club in January after contract cancellations.

They were all part of the diminutive Scot’s up-and-down tenure in the Pride Park Stadium hot-seat as he catapulted the Rams to promotion but then took the pay-off when he was found wanting at Premier League level. The January departees will not command such lucrative contracts again in their careers and all have left for lesser clubs.

Making them free agents by severing their Derby contracts left them free to find new clubs and negotiate contracts befitting of their circumstances.

Terminal wage payments and severances paid to departing players may cost DCFC money rather that saving any at this time but the player(s) can look to new challenges and the out-of-favour faces no longer populate Moor Farm.

The Rams have therefore recently moved on Pearson, Bywater and Leacock; Riggott and Anderson had their contracts cancelled too. David Martin has been transferred; Miles Addison has been loaned to Barnsley and junior goalkeeper Ross Atkins is out on loan with Burton Albion.

There are sure to be further twists and turns in departure and recruitment matters surrounding the club so we will see how the January transfer window activity unfolds. As well as the ‘purple patch’ of form on the field, it has been a very successful time for Derby off the pitch in terms of reducing their wage liabilities.

The Derby squad is now pretty lean in some areas regarding cover and so if fans hear much more about the need to trim wages, they may become more cynical about GSE’s investment intentions.

Media reports suggest the club might soon recruit their long-awaited ‘technical director’ to strengthen their off-field team, as Watford’s Ross Wilson - who performs a similar role with the Hornets - is being linked with a move to Derby County.

The GSE-Clough partnership has a solid base to build on for 2012 and beyond in terms of results. The further squad-cull that Nigel has quietly undertaken keeps the club ‘on-track’ financially but to sustain good results on the pitch, Clough still needs to further improve squad depth and quality.

Derby County were able to confirm that the 4th Round home FA Cup tie against Stoke City will take place on Saturday, 28th January (3.00 pm). The problematic random and unallocated open seating invitation that applied to the Crystal Palace game appears to have been abandoned for a sensible season-ticket purchase deadline before tickets go on general release.

Striker Steve Davies is closer to a return to action, with his head injuries healed and the player due to be assessed by the consultants within a few days to hopefully be given the all-clear to resume first-team duty. He may then be involved in the upcoming Derbyshire Senior Cup tie with Pinxton.

Off-field, the club’s revised stadium Plaza plans (proposed in their original form several years ago) by then-director Peter Gadsby, were granted planning permission by the Council. The decision paves the way for redevelopment of some of the stadium land area, with additional facilities to be built for the benefit of the city, the tourist and business sector and Derby County fans.

Saturday’s home game with Coventry City brought expectations of an extended winning streak for Nigel Clough’s improving team. City, bottom of the Championship table and experiencing fan unrest and disaffection, dwell within an unstable financial situation that could easily instead be occupied by Derby County.

Had Mr Sleightholme’s regime (or a fragment thereof) managed to dupe Rams fans into backing their SISU hedge-fund dream instead of the local solution proposed by Mr Peter Gadsby, the decline might have steepened. For the moment, Derby looks stable and secure by comparison.

The Sky Blues for good measure lost their goalscoring talisman Lukas Jutkeiwicz to Middlesbrough, initially on loan, on the eve of the game. The £1.5m fee that Boro will pay City in the summertime to secure Lukas on a permanent deal might come in useful at the Ricoh Arena; though manager Andy Thorn says he also needs new players right now.

Nigel Clough had no such problems, naming an unchanged side as home fans mused as to whether Derby might grab a big win and the manager even be enabled to give schoolboy substitute Mason Bennett a chance during this game to claim the title of youngest-ever League goalscorer in compounding Coventry’s current miseries.

Thorn’s side was bizarrely clad in dark green shirts and played like Derby have done on many occasions away from home in recent seasons - whatever kit was worn - often easy on the eye, neat in possession but utterly toothless and unthreatening at the business end of the pitch, near the opposing penalty area.

Coventry prevented Derby from making a swashbuckling start to the game and calmly went about their business; it was half an hour before Derby forced a corner, not that Frank Fielding was exactly overworked either.

As ever, Ward and Bryson worked prodigiously to spark Derby attacks but Coventry’s covering and work-rate meant that the Derby performance was fragmented and unproductive in the first half.

It was as if City were whiling away the time until the SISU ownership debacle that Derby had narrowly avoided in 2007, spells relegation for City from the Championship at the end of this season. For their part, Derby had the confidence to be patient, given their recent form and the defensive solidity now shown by this year’s model.

In the second half, Derby upped the tempo and played with a hint of the urgency that has recently knocked over better teams than Coventry. Fans knew that if a goal was scored by the home side, the Sky Blues might not have enough about them in attack to do very much about the final result.

So it proved, even if the dangerous combination of Clingan and McSheffrey fashioned City’s best effort after 74 minutes as the latter flashed in a header from Clingan’s fierce cross - only for Frank Fielding to pull off a stupendous close-range reflex save to push the ball wide of goal.

That was the turning point of the game, as a sweeping Derby move with Green and Bryson immediately breaking through the stubborn Coventry back line. The move left Callum Ball with the opportunity to deftly pass the ball into the Coventry net for the decisive goal.

Ball and Robinson did not otherwise get too much joy from the Coventry defence, but moments of brilliance from Derby’s goalkeeper and then their teenage centre-forward were made to count, as Derby went on to protect their lead.

Callum’s strike was a huge relief to the home crowd, totally deflating to the previously enthusiastic 900-odd Sky Blues fans in attendance among the 24,200 crowd. The Rams managed to see out the last 15 minutes without undue alarm and City stayed rock bottom of the table (with the Trees down there for company) whilst Derby inched up to 8th place.

The Derby performance was rather hit-and-miss and a goal-fest had looked out of the question from the early stages. Coventry will fight desperately for their Championship lives, but took little gain from Saturday after a creditably determined performance.

Sky Blues’ boss Andy Thorn felt his team deserved some reward from the game, but they lacked any cutting edge. Rams’ coach Andy Garner commended the patience of the Derby players, who worked hard for the victory.

This year’s model of Coventry City FC will continue to fight vigorously against the odds as the club tiptoes through the barbed path of financial decline and disruption.

As problems mount, City may need to suffer the drop to regroup under new ownership to climb again and reach a position somewhere closer to their potential. The Sky Blues look set at this time to follow DirtyLeeds, the Trees, Foxes and Owls for a spell in the third tier.

As fan protests continue, the cathedral city’s club is being stripped as bare of hope, under the motley SISU ownership, as was the legendary 11th-Century wife of the Earl of Mercia during that infamous naked horse ride through the Coventry streets, allegedly undertaken in order to gain remission from oppressive taxation.

We didn’t ‘pay City back’ for some recent 6-goal humblings - but the narrow defeat inflicted on them at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday was a damaging blow.

Derby travel to Burnley FC next Saturday and the turf accountants probably won’t stack high odds in favour of Derby making it six wins out of six at Turf Moor - but the Rams are in good shape now and have recently shown themselves capable of matching up or beating whatever opposition the Championship can offer.

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RamsWeek 3 last year saw Derby fall ‘too low for zero’ as they fell victim to a major FA Cup upset when being dumped out by non-League Crawley Town. Kris Commons had an early penalty saved by keeper Kuipers, Town took the lead, albeit they had been lucky to retain 11 men after Tubbs’ two-footed challenge on Savage.

A giant-killing looked on the cards for most of the game in truth. Of the Derby players, only the towering, battling Miles Addison - who powered in an equaliser after the break - performed near the level required. A stoppage-time Crawley winner consigned Derby to permanent embarrassment on future TV clips previewing the excitement and romance of the FA Cup.

There was a ‘behind closed doors’ lock-in for the Derby players afterwards and the defeat was a watershed moment in the 2010-11 season. There was silence from the manager in the media, leading some to even believe he had stepped down or had been sacked.

Squad reinforcements were clearly needed though the immediate news was the media linkage of Derby captain Robbie Savage to Canadian MLS outfit Vancouver Whitecaps. That rumour proved unfounded, although later stories linked Whitecaps, funded by GSE partner Jeff Mallett, with several other Derby players.

It all fuelled the growing discontent among the long-suffering Derby fanbase even if there were still positive noises coming from the club and Kris Commons about the likelihood that he would remain a Derby player.

Photo: Action Images

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