Welcome to my first article of the 2012-13 season - Front Row View is a new column, which will be a personal look at Derby County’s current life and times. Join in, and give your own views!

I call it Front Row View because I’ve been perched in my seat on the front row of the East Stand Upper from Day One of Pride Park Stadium’s existence - and for the best part of 30 more years of Ramsfanship at the Baseball Ground before that time.

Not that the club has yet actually managed to send me my 2012-13 season-ticket pack - well after all, it is only about 5 months ago since I paid for it in full up front.

So - a new season, a reworked squad; Derby seems to be starting over again in many ways. Early results were disappointing. You don’t get points for pretty football and inconsequential possession.

Naming Nathan Tyson as the main goal-getter and deploying him as a target man were head-scratchers from this fan’s point of view given the ex-Tree player’s career statistics and injury record. Jamie Ward is not prolific either - he is best deployed as a pest on the wing.

The sight of Ward forlornly battling Owls’ central defenders a foot taller left me a little exasperated.

Against Scunny and the Owls, chances went begging in the opposing penalty area whilst opponents unhinged the Rams’ midfield and defence all too easily.

We are still looking for our first win but fought creditably to the very end of a battling 90-minute performance at Wolves after a defeat had loomed for almost an hour.

The players are working hard; the work ethic is honest enough. Well, Theo Robinson’s fingers worked hard on Twitter to give midweek opponents Bolton some pre-game team selection information.

He seldom appears to have his brains in his feet and I must admit that his twit-like misdemeanours had me wondering if he had any brains at all! His redemption came at Molineux.

The opposition is working hard as well, for the full 90 minutes every game - which in the early matches has been converted into points or wins for them. Derby’s rookie complement has had an early taste of how competitive the Championship always is and they must match up.

You can’t help but applaud the Owls’ rapid recovery and acclimatisation last week. After a comprehensive first-half towelling, they took control and might well have won the game.

Derby’s endeavour proved insufficient to overcome their first two Championship opponents and of course, Derby capitulated badly to be dumped out of the League Cup yet again by lower league opposition in the competitive Pride Park curtain-raiser, in front of a tiny crowd.

It all looked fine for an hour against Scunthorpe United and also for 45 minutes against Sheffield Wednesday four days later. Giving away 2 and 3-goal leads and then those disastrous late goals at Bolton only betrayed the frailty of the side.

Lo and behold, however, Wolves got a bit of a chasing from Derby for large parts of the game last Saturday and were then on the receiving end of the late-goal treatment, as the Rams grabbed a last-gasp equaliser. Theo got on with his job after his disloyal twitterings to rescue a point at the death. It makes the run-up to the Watford home game next Saturday that much easier.

Wolves are getting to grips with life back in the Championship - they are boinging and bouncing between the divisions more often than neighbours West Bromwich Albion at the moment.

The Wolves will have an astonishing £40m financial advantage over Derby County in the financial stakes (albeit not in one lump), as they will receive their first £12m ‘parachute payment and this week sold forwards Kightly, Fletcher and Jarvis for fees totalling some 28m.

Tag onto that useful windfall a further £12m per-season ‘parachute payments’ that Wolves will receive for three more seasons. The scale of recompense for the relegated clubs makes it a very uneven competition in the second tier - even if that loot never guarantees instant promotion.

The current Derby team has a young look - too young in my view, as it lacks strength and power in key areas that have been lacking for some time. You cannot see the youngsters - especially Bennett and Hughes at their very tender ages - maintaining the level of performance and physical output that a 46-game Championship season will demand.

Increasingly, they will also have international demands upon their talent so Mr Clough will need to nurse them along a bit.

The under-21 squad made a solid start to their new Professional Development League 2-North campaign, drawing 2-2 at DirtyLeeds and beating the furry Foxes 3-2 (with a permitted 4 over-age players in the team). Graduation to Championship level or development into saleable assets is what Derby will aim for from this new junior league.

Could the Rams cash in on young starlets like Bennett and Hughes? If they give in to elite clubs and ‘churn’ their youngest, talents, will they plough that money back into more experience? Time will tell. What sort of team will we have come September, and what will this season bring?

Young signings like Jacobs and O’Connor will need time to acclimatise and big defender Richard Keogh, though a formidable presence, has a hard path to tread in Jason Shackell’s shoes or in Shaun Barker’s stead, as well as learning to play alongside Derby’s established defenders.

Derby needs more know-how and holding power at the core of midfield and also (sorely) up front, where the ongoing absence of a target man works against ball retention and helps opponents.

I agreed with others in expressing dismay over the timing of Jason Shackell’s departure. We all banked on him being ‘the rock’ in defence after his superb displays last season - he ran Craig Bryson very close for the PoTY award. There was little profit for the club in selling Jason and lesser players have been sold for much more elsewhere.

No doubt Jason has ramped up his wages in the process and it seems that his new employers, Burnley, are at present a better bet for Championship success.

The Shackell episode seemed to deflect the Rams’ management and push them off-track, given the obvious need for new strike-power. The ongoing lack of a target man and the departure of joint top-scorer Steve Davies only compounded supporter concerns about Derby’s fire-power.

The £1.2m signing of striker Conor Sammon at least lessened the cynicism abroad within the Derby fanbase. Whilst Derby added his attacking energy and effort in the place of Steve Davies, it’s questionable if Sammon can be a prolific goalscorer - and he is still not the kind of bruising target man that we’ve lacked since the days of Steve Howard and Rob Hulse.

Let’s hope he doesn’t just become Clough’s ‘Luke Varney’ character - an unproductive run-around nearly man.

A sobering fact, though: after more than four and a half years of GSE’s custodianship, Conor Sammon is the only player in the Derby team with Premier League experience.

On the showings so far, the side lacks also enough physicality and ruthlessness, to make a mark over the course of a long season - even if there is pace and a touch or two of skill in there - it’s a side likely to plod steadily rather than charge up the table.

I believe that Conor will be a success but the Derby jigsaw still has several pieces missing.

We know that significant signings are unlikely by the August 31st transfer deadline without further departures from our squad, such is the fiscal policy at Pride Park Stadium (or rather, somewhere over in Detroit and in various other remote places where shareholders lurk silently).

There’s been a dose of déjà vu in the post-game interviews. Manager Clough has rebuilt the squad before without achieving major progress - he’s berated and then jettisoned players for not keeping possession at crucial moments, or being wasteful with their goalscoring attempts.

Nearly men Ben Davies and James Bailey appear to be on the verge of departure; if they do go, I hope for some solid experience or a proven loanee or two that will add genuine strength in depth.

So we again look to the potential of a young squad; we may have to hold tight, be patient (yet again....) and see what the team looks like after a dozen games or so.

The first team is certainly not off to the flyer enjoyed last season, though the draw at Molineux stemmed a somewhat flat start to the campaign. It’s been some good, some bad so far. Typical Derby!

Come May 2013, we might only be treading water again: safe but decidedly unspectacular.

Given such a long ownership and managerial tenure with GSE and Mr Clough’s staff now and after repeated “jam tomorrow” promises from the club year-on-year, is that enough...?

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