Another pointless Saturday, another day walking the road following the Rams in our year on year progression, slow build, 5 or 10 or is it 20 year plan - choose your own description.

Sentiments perfect summed up by the Oyster band as they sang

“Hey, hey, the donkeys say

Milk and honey's on the way

Everybody get down and pray

It's jam tomorrow, sh*t today”

Even the happy clappers on tour are beginning to consider “We’re Only Here For The Beer” a fitting epitaph to this dead season.

Unless you consider relegation!

The “R” word now spoken, will we avoid it? Yesterday we had the positives, we scored, Craig Forsyth headed a ball goal wards, Conor Sammon let it drift over his shining plate and Ben Davies gambled and we took the lead.

Jake Buxton was immense in the first half, he shone as he won ball after ball. He had to. Richard Keogh had the sort of game that in other teams would get you dropped and whatever Valentin Gjokaj is it isn’t a right full back. Ben Davies was better, considerably.

Sorry slipped into the negative there.

Positive, the positives, err yes okay, we worked hard as a team. Is that enough? Guessing your answer I think you’re right. It’s nowhere near.

Basically the team put out at St Andrew’s tried their hardest, Forsyth is limited, he’ll make a living out of the game a bit like Ben Pringle does. Hendrick, Paul Coutts they can play but we had no spark, no individual skill. Maybe we can’t afford it.

We had no pace either, Mason Bennett on the bench perhaps our fastest but not chosen.

We tried, we scored, we might have added a second or even a third, but Birmingham have a goal keeper and a reasonable one at that in Jack Butland, he’d have been disappointed to concede more than one.

One half when we had the upper hand, two substitutions and the home side took the game to us. They exploited our right flank where Gjokaj was a liability they brushed aside Keogh and by the end of the match the Blues were comfortable three nil victors.

Blind faithers will perhaps point to a penalty claim when Sammon was slid into by Butland, an action perhaps missed by our disabled supporters who had a group of idiots in the line of sight who continually stood up. Despite being told to sit down they continued to stand, how mean and inconsiderate can you be I doubt even ATOS would expect wheelchair users to take to their feet and stand.

Final whistle and the trek homeward begins. The lasting memory of the day the Gaelic Coffee, a Church End Brewery stout brewed with Bushmills Irish Whiskey and a great dose of Vanilla - it packed a punch and had fantastic staying power.

If only the same could be said of our team.

Derby Player Ratings (4-4-2):

Legzdins 6, Gjokaj 4, Roberts 6, Keogh 5, Buxton 7, Davies 7(Jacobs 4), Coutts 5, Hendrick 6, Forsyth 5, Sammon 5, Martin 5.

Subs: Fielding, Hoganson, Doyle, Bennett, Freeman, O'Brien.

Photo: Action Images

Derby County Polls