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Bill's Take: Rams Haunted By 20 Million Pounds Of Benched Blunders
Friday, 16th Sep 2016 06:44 by Bill Riordan

The Rams have played two matches at home in the last 7 days with both ending as defeats as they fell 2-0 to Newcastle and 1-0 to Ipswich.

The tale of woe pretty much goes on and now the Rams sit just above the relegation places in twenty-first place, with five points from seven games and three consecutive defeats.

There are some bright spots though; Newcastle’s 6-0 win at QPR on Tuesday shows that they really are a talented side for this division; while we should certainly not be happy with our defeat against them and absolutely not happy with the manner of defeat, perhaps it was not entirely unexpected.

The Ipswich defeat, against a more typical Championship side than Newcastle, contained much to admire from the Rams; movement. The Rams showed pace and effort that have both been lacking but were there against Ipswich and new players Vydra, Anya and Wilson all looked as though they might make up part of a much more effective attack.

In recent articles I have become accustomed to carping about what I refer to as the Clement/Rush Six; a group of Rams players comprising Bradley Johnson, Jacob Butterfield, Tom Ince, Andreas Weimann, Nick Blackman and Abdoul Camara; all of whom joined the Rams for large fees on long contracts, and have so far experienced some difficulty making a sustained contribution to the cause.

It is my contention that the Rams cannot build a successful team without a significant contribution from the majority of these six; by the same token it will be impossible to move them on unless they can raise their performances from the current low level.

I bring them up again because of an odd phenomenon I noticed before the Newcastle match; not one of the Six was in the Rams starting eleven.

We had almost £20 million worth of transfer market talent sitting on the bench; more than we had out on the pitch, even with record signing Vydra making his first start. Ince and Blackman did make substitute appearances but neither enhanced their reputations.

Against Ipswich we had one of the Six in Butterfield starting and again Blackman was a late substitute. For me, it is both strange and frustrating to see previous record signing Bradley Johnson sitting on the bench and making no contribution, while the team continues to struggle.

It seems as though Nigel Pearson has decided that his best option is to try and proceed using the Six as little as possible; though as fixtures mount up and injuries and suspensions start to take a toll, the Six will have to play a part.

Any way we look at the situation, the prospects for the Rams this season are not looking all that great, unless we begin to see a major change from members of these Six.

But there are a number of other factors that could work to transform things for the Rams. First of all, it would really be a welcome relief to see George Thorne return, fit and effective. The most recent word is that won’t be until at least mid to late November, but frankly it cannot come soon enough.

Secondly, we need to see Johnny Russell and Craig Bryson scoring goals in the numbers they have previously for the Rams and finally, we need to see the new blokes, Matej Vydra and James Wilson scoring goals as we know they can at this level.

In the immediate future, the Rams have a match at Bristol City on Saturday. City look to have made a reasonably solid start to the season, with three wins, a draw and three defeats.

The key to their season so far seems to be the eighteen year-old loan striker from Chelsea, Tammy Abraham who to date has six goals in six league starts and one as a sub.

I hate to describe any match as a must win this early in the season but the Rams really do need a result on Saturday.

A continuation of the improved form showed in the Ipswich match should bring at least a little joy, and we can look to move forward from there.



Photo: Action Images



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