Ramballs

The City Ground was the scene of yet another exciting, but ultimately disappointing, East Midlands derby game which saw the red dogs collect the Brian Clough trophy for the first time. The Rams learnt today that you can’t win them all, especially when you concede three goals in the first half.

Within one minute of kick off, 58 seconds to be precise, Derby were one goal down through an excellent strike from Radoslaw Majewski which left Bywater with no chance. This was not the start that the Rams had anticipated and things weren’t going to be getting better in a hurry.

The referee put his mark on the game very early on by dishing out three yellow cards within the first 12 minutes. For a game which is clearly going to be a tough, physical contest, this was disappointing as it prevented the game from flowing as you might expect in these circumstances.

The Rams still looked dangerous going forward and the ball managed to find its way to Gary Teale who has demonstrated a cool finishing ability this season. Not so today. He received the ball on the edge of the area and struck a shot wide of the left post.

The reds second goal came from a set piece after Kris Commons conceded a free kick. The ball was played in deep and Dexter Blackstock managed to squeeze himself in between Rob Hulse and Miles Addison to put the ball beyond Stephen Bywater.

Rob Hulse looked to have pulled us back into the game only for the referee to disallow the goal for no apparent reason. Would this be a repeat of the Atwell show last season? It would appear so.

The referee can’t be blamed for the goals conceded though and the third goal was a good example of pace beating our defence. Kris Commons lost possession and Forest burst forward. Dexter Blackstock played a good ball to Nathan Tyson ran behind the defence and slotted beneath the oncoming Bywater.

The half time whistle blew and Derby left the pitch with a mountain to climb in the second half.

If the Rams had to climb a mountain, they must have had some Kendal Mint cake at half time as they came flying out of the traps. Kris Commons was replaced by Lee Croft which gave the Rams more balance as Crofty on the right caused problems for Forest for the rest of the afternoon.

The Rams soon clawed their way back into the game through Miles Addison. His overhead kick came off Cohen and Lee Camp was staring at the ball as it rolled into the bottom corner of the net. Game on!
It was clear that the lads believed they could still get something from this game as the passing became more precise, the movement was better and the tempo increased and on 61 minutes, Jake Livermore found the back of the net from just outside the area.

The rest of the game was frantic with several opportunities for the Rams, the best of which fell to Rob Hulse. Hulse came close to getting on the end of a Teale cross which would certainly have pulled the Rams level if only he’d got just the slightest of touches.

Lee Croft continued to cause problems down the right but he failed to put the ball into the dangerous areas when he got into good positions.

As the final moments of the game drew close, the action became more frenetic and tempers began fray. Savage was involved in an exchange of verbals with one of the Forest unknowns and Stephen Pearson picked up a booking late in the game despite not doing anything other than walk away from a heated situation. This was just one of many moments of poor refereeing in this game.

The final whistle blew and the scum scored their first victory of the Rams for six and half years. You might have thought this would be satisfaction enough for the red dogs but that wasn’t true for Nathan Tyson who plucked the corner flag out of the ground and started waving it around right in front of the 4000+ Derby fans. Before long all the players had come together for a round of handbags at dawn which included the coaching staff of both sides. No doubt the FA will be looking into this matter but I doubt they have the power to enforce a full frontal lobotomy on Tyson which may well be the only thing to cure his supreme idiocy.

Check out this footage from after the game.

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
Sky Sports Online
Daily Telegraph Championship Round up
Daily Mirror Report
The Sun CCC Round-Up
Daily Star Match Report
ITV Match Report
ESPN Match Report
Western Morning News Online Report
Sporting Preview Match report
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!

It would be unfair of me to give a full opinion of the draw at Blackpool when I wasn’t there. I’m quite happy with the result because every point away from home is valuable but it’s the game on Saturday that will tell us if it was a decent point or not. There are a lot of fans around the messageboards who still appear to need 24hr suicide watch despite is picking up four points from the possible nine.

I’ve been browsing some of the messageboards and I’d like to share some of the more considered write-ups from yesterdays game.

First off, Milton_Keynes Ram from popside.com shared their post-match thoughts. MKR knows football and I think if you want a decent report of the rams performance, head over to popside.com and read MKRs comments after each match.

A clean sheet is always welcome but god that was a boring and crap game of football. In patches on Saturday at Scunthorpe we played better than we did last night, but the difference was a lot more solid against what was admittedly a very very poor Blackpool team who will probably struggle all season.

The first ten minutes we looked the more controlled and composed team and look to me like we would assert control and dominate the game but a few almost casual moments at the back, players trying to do too much on the ball, or no conviction when passing itl got the crowd into it for them and seemed to give their players the boost they needed and after that we never seemed in total control.

Addison and Buxton in particular looked more solid than at the weekend…..though given the type of forward Buxton was up against I’m not surprised. Moxey and Connolly on numerous occassions played their entire attack onside when they should be able to look across the line or/and take the lead from the centre backs and a better attack would have taken advantage. Savage too played them onside a few times when tracking back. To me I think the individual awareness of a number of players in these instances was poor, couple with poor communication from Addison/Buxton almost caused us problems that should never have occurred.

Green was missed tonight. Pearson started reasonably well in the first 5-10 minutes but rapidly faded out of the game and Savage never really took control of the midfield. Croft was exceptionally poor and should have been dragged off plenty earlier whilst Teale seemed frightened to take the full back on either side on. For the majority of the game Teale was up against Eardley the ex-Oldham right back we were linked with over the summer - looked a very good player albeit the first time I’d seen him.

Commons started well but then drifted more and more out of the game as it went on; surprised reading Clough’s comments about him post-match whilst Hulse was clearly not match fit. Although only on briefly Varney probably contributed more in the time he was on the pitch than in any other game for us besides the second half of his debut at Burnley last season.

Whilst we had problems with the offside rule whilst defending the amount of times Croft, teale and Hulse managed to get themselves offside at innocuous times was criminal.

Very poor and flat atmosphere from the travelling fans although the home fans made up for it. Did well to keep the noise in the ground given one temporary uncovered stand and one half built one. Never intimidating as some grounds can be but full marks for getting behind their team.

Finally if the rumours were to be believed about us being in for Charlie Adam over the summer I’m glad they weren’t true. Rotten rotten footballer.
<\i>

———————————

Over on the DET forums, ratpackramwrote:

Bywater 6 - nothing to do , one save in second half , dodgy ball control nearly let in their forward

Connolly 6 - poor first half , improved a lot in the second

Moxey 9 - outstanding , class class class , great buy

Addison 8 - never gave them a sniff

Buxton 9 - won every header, small but so is cannavaro, another great buy

Croft 5 - unfit , poor crossing, might do better if he lost a few pounds

Teale 6 - tried but no end product

Savage 6 - did what he does , kept it simple

Pearson 7 - just shaded Sav, had a
bit more going forward

Commons 8 - involved in anything we created which was not a lot to be fair but has our x factor

Hulse 7 - no service , kept battling away trying to flick ball on to himself as no one gambled for the flick on

Might get slaughtered for this but I was impressed with Varney when he came on for Hulse
what about playing him in home games alongside Hulse with Commons on the left linking with Moxey , push Teale on the right , get Croft on a diet and bring Barker in for Connolly.

It was being billed as Clough jr vs Ferguson jr as the media constantly reminded us of both Nigel and Darren’s fathers achievements. Our Nigel had beaten Ferguson Snr last season and was now looking to complete the Ferguson set. Darren Ferguson has high hopes for his Peterborough team as he talks of reaching the Premier League but before he can do that he had to take his Posh side to Pride Park. It’s ok though because they’d done their homework, as he told the BBC “We are going there to win as in any other game, we know their strengths and we know their weaknesses,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s all about us and we can go there and give a good account of ourselves”

To be fair to Peterborough, they did give a decent account of themselves but the first half was dominated by The Rams as the five man midfield chased everything, passed well and always wanted the ball. The defence weren’t troubled too much and the first 45 minutes were satisfying for Derby fans.

The first goal came from a badly cleared corner as Miles Addison threw himself at the ball to head it in at the far post. This was a brave move as he collided with a Peterborough player and injured himself along the way. This minor knock was unlikely to keep Miles down for long though; he picked himself up and carried on with the match, playing a blinder if I do say so myself.

The Posh followed up The Rams goal with a goal of their own after new boy Tommy Rowe crossed low into the six yard box to George Boyd who slotted home with ease. Seconds of joy for The Posh fans were soon replaced by disaapointment as they realised the flag was up; offside!

Derby were better in possession and I can honestly say that I didn’t feel too concerned when Peterborough attacked. They did have a few efforts, notably Aaron Mcleans shot which went wide from ten yards.

The start of the second half saw Paul Green replaced by Kris Commons and The Rams appeared to shift to a 4-4-2 formation, with Commons playing alongside Steve Davies. The game seemed pretty even at times; only poor execution in the final third seemed to prevent either team from scoring. The exception to this was Dean Moxeys last ditch tackle which was sublime. Craig Mackail-Smith was clean through on goal and, in my mind, the only possible outcomes from the situation were a goal conceded or penalty awarded. Moxey proved me wrong in stunning style as he timed him sliding challenge to perfection and pulled the ball away from CMS.

The Posh were awarded a penalty though. Bywater came running out of his goal and was left stranded in a moment of madness. Shaun Batt ran onto the ball, knocked it past the keeper and went down under the challenge of the Derby goalie. From where I was sat, it seemed harsh. He got a touch but he kicked it out of play and would never have caught the ball had he not be brought down. That was irrelevent though, the penatly stood and now Bywater was the only man who can save the day.

He didn’t. George Boyd scored, sending Stephen Bywater the wrong way in the process.

I thought that was it. We were likely to be leaving with a point but I hadn’t banked on Gary Teale being in the right place at the right time.

Kris Commons played the ball into the box from a corner and the following goal mouth scramble resulted in the ball landing at Gary Teales feet and he tapped the ball in from a few yards.

Full Time: Derby 2 - 1 Peterborough

I make no apologies for being Derby biased. If you want impartial reporting, don’t visit a Derby County blog written by a Derby County fan

Check out the some unbiased (and a couple of biased) match reports from around the web.

DCFC Official Site
Peterborough Official Site
Sky Sports
Derby Evening Telegraph
Guardian
Daily Telegraph
Daily Mail
Daily Express
Daily Star
The Times
BBC
Ramzone
Derby County Mad
Football.co.uk