Ramballs

I thought I would save you the bother of trawling the internet to find some Derby vs Plymouth match reports and I have added the ones I can find to this page. Happy browsing!

TheRams.co.uk
DCFC Official Site
BBC Online
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Daily Telegraph Championship Round up
Daily Mirror Report
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ITV Match Report
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Western Morning News Online Report
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Plymouth Argyle Official Site
Plymouth Argyle Mad
Derby COunty Mad
Football365 Report

Pride Park was bathed in sunshine today for the Rams match against Plymouth Argyle. Paul Sturrock’s side came to Derby looking for their first win of the season but it wasn’t to be as the Green Army couldn’t match the Rams in the second half.

The starting eleven featured Steve Davies as the lone striker with support from Spurs loanee Jake Livermore and Stephen Pearson in midfield with Croft and Teale playing out on the flanks. Once again, Nigel Clough saw fit to stick with Jake Buxton and Miles Addison in the heart of defence with Shaun Barker warming the bench alongside Kris Commons and Rob Hulse.

From a Rams fans perspective the first half was poor up until the 30 minute mark. The lads were wasteful in possession and the movement just wasn’t there, nor were many simple passes to feet. Bywater nearly landed himself in trouble when his pass fell well short of the target and Dean Moxey played a fantastic ball, from inside the Plymouth half, out to the other side of the pitch for the Argyle wide man to run onto. Composed football this wasn’t.

Argyle went close on ten minutes when Derby failed to clear the ball and Karl Duguid hit a first time shot that deflected wide. The Greens didn’t have to wait too long for the lead though, as Jamie Mackie ran onto a long ball and struck the ball against the post. Alan Judge followed up and tried to take the ball past Jake Buxton who brought Judge down and conceded a penalty in the process. It was Judge who was fouled and Judge who handed out the punishment as he slotted home a powerful penalty. I didn’t see the replay at half time but someone who sits near me did and he said the foul was committed a yard outside the penalty area. I can’t comment because from where I sat it looked like a nailed on penalty but we’ll soon find out on tonight’s Football League show.

Plymouth continued to press and spent much of the next ten minutes camped inside the Derby half but failed to make any serious inroads. It wasn’t until the 35 minute mark that the Rams started playing with a sense of urgency and incisiveness that had been missing until that point. The Rams started to get bodies forward and they got their reward five minutes before half time.

A deep free kick was cleared to Robbie Savage, the new Rams captain, who was just outside the box and hit a low ball back into the area which found Jake Buxton who slotted home from 6 yards.

Half Time 1 - 1

The second half was a different game completely as the Rams found their stride but once again struggled to find the net. Stephen Pearson came close to giving the Rams the lead but the ball travelled wide of the left hand post. What followed shortly after will no doubt cause problems for Nigel Clough in the coming weeks.

Steve Davies was fighting for the ball and then went down on the deck in a lot of pain. The stretchers came on and took the young striker off and now we have to wait to find out what the damage is. It’s a real shame for Steve as his Derby career has been blighted by injury so far and you just feel that if he had a decent run in the team he could really give opposition defenders a problem. Fingers crossed that it is not as serious as it first seemed.

Rob Hulse replaced the injured Davies and his height gave the wide men something to aim for in the middle. Around the 70 minute mark he headed wide and it’s just a matter of time before we get Rob Hulse returning to the starting eleven and firing on all cylinders.

Kris Commons entered the fray shortly after 70 minutes replacing Lee Croft. Croft’s performance today caused the Argyle full back a lot of problems and won the Rams a number of free kicks. With Croft off the pitch, Gary Teale moved onto the right hand side and Kris Commons took up left wing duties.

Derby eventually took the lead in the final minute of the match after a string of corners finally resulted in the ball finding Miles Addison who is proving to be a real handful for the opposition during set pieces. Miles rose highest and put the ball in the net giving Derby a late winner.

Possession
Derby 43% Plymouth 57%

Shots on target
Derby 9 Plymouth 2

Shots off target
Derby 4 Plymouth 6

Corners
Derby 13 Plymouth 5

Fouls
Derby 6 Plymouth 23

Attendence: 26,186

RamBalls Additional Comments

The first half was not pretty viewing and we made hard work of getting the win against a Plymouth side who didn’t really threaten us all that much. The attendence at today’s game was also disappointing as Pride Park was home to just over 26,000 fans for the afternoon which, quite frankly, is poor. I recognise the low number of away fans meant we were unlikely to break the 30k mark but 26k is low by our excellent standards. Kids under 8 were free but that still didn’t help. I’d also question the logic of chanting “is that all you take away?” to Plymouth fans who faced a 500 mile round trip to see a team which is struggling to perform under Paul Sturrock.

Jake Livermore had a good debut. He has bags of energy (although he did appear to cramp up a little towards the end) and is comfortable playing a passing game, especially in close quarters. When he was subbed off I heard one “supporter” shout “fuck off back to spurs, you’re shit!” which is not only wrong but also a really strange way to get behind the team. Hopefully our lads get more support from the rest of our fans in future.

Finally, the match day announcer did a better job today than the guy who did it against Peterborough but that wasn’t hard. Simply announcing the right team coming onto the pitch was better than the last game although announcing the attendance without the away fans included was a little strange but it didn’t make that much difference to the total.

Bring on the Forest!