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RamsWeek 3 - Don't Let Me Down!
RamsWeek 3 - Don't Let Me Down!
Monday, 21st Jan 2008 00:45 by Paul Mortimer

The 0-1 home defeat by Wigan had left the Rams flat and still striving fruitlessly for goals and points in their extended barren spell.

Derby has lost to four of the bottom seven clubs recently and there is little relief for the long-suffering fans.

Derby manager Paul Jewell had a disappointed and frustrated reaction: "Nothing's happening for us. We're disjointed, not playing with any confidence, not moving the ball”.

He feels that the performances have been more competitive whilst acknowledging that Derby’s squad were not really ready for the Premier League. He’s desperately keen to give the fans a win, some relief from the dreadful run of results.

More bad news came when it was confirmed that full back Tyrone Mears would miss three months with a shin fracture. Kenny Miller and Stephen Pearson have however emerged from the treatment room and are back in training.

Aussie midfielder Mile Sterjowski has his work permit appeal heard next Wednesday. He wasn’t selected for his nation because the national coach elected to blood home-based players. As this is what’s holding up Mile’s move to Derby, you can only conclude that obstructing a work permit for a judgement concerning a match for which he couldn’t be selected is something only the bungling football authorities could conceive.

Derby awaited the arrival of two Bulgarians on trial; Under-21 internationals striker/winger Ivelin Popov and defender Ivan Ivanov were snow-bound at home however and Jewell’s interest cooled as the airport runways froze up.

Benny Feilhaber travelled to Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv in talks for a cut-price move of only £275,000, which surprised Rams fans. Seeing £3m Claude Davis’ turgid form and not seeing £3.5m record signing Rob Earnshaw hardly at all, it just about put the cap on most people’s judgements of Billy Davies’ major summer signings! Danny didn’t move to Maccabi in any event so we still ponder whether Paul Jewell sees a place for him at Derby.

There was speculation that Rob Earnshaw may go on loan to former club Cardiff but Jewell scotched this rumour. The manager has been frustrated in his moves to shore up his defence so far and Glasgow Rangers’ goalkeeper Roy Carroll - keen to come to Derby - was still hamstrung by his club’s wishes to hang onto him. Jewell can’t wait forever and is looking at other targets.

Apart from the Kevin Keegan soccer circus returning to Newcastle and the ongoing Liverpool conundrum, there were media curios for Rams fans to digest, with jobless ex-manager Billy Davies fawning over Preston North End in the Lancashire press, musing that he wished he’d taken Preston up instead of Derby. It was an inept piece of shame-faced turncoat whimsy from a man with declining popularity.

As if that rubbish wasn’t enough, dopey Dennis Unwise at third division Leeds United was going off on one because Derby were linked with his top scorer Jermaine Beckford. Wise declared that Leeds were a bigger club than Derby and the player had no place there. It was just irrelevant nonsense as Jewell dismissed any interest in Beckford and admonished the idiotic Leeds boss for being disrespectful.

The anticipated news about USA inward investment in Derby County was forestalled as chairman Adam Pearson said that talks were still progressing. Here’s hoping it comes off to Derby’s benefit and doesn’t develop in the fractured and damaging manner as with the American investment at Liverpool.

The Portsmouth away game approached with numerous injury problems remaining for Derby but with added hope as the new quartet of Robert, Ghaly, Savage and Mills had more time to bed in as teammates.

Paul Jewell said that his players were playing for their Pride Park futures and that he expected them to demonstrate that they had a part to play in the club’s revival - or he will look to move them on. It was the manager’s weary plea for further productive improvements from his squad: “Don’t Let Me Down!”

Jewell expects to build a good team here eventually and had some dark days at Wigan before he moved them to 10th place in the Premier League. The next target is three points in a win and certainly overall to avoid recording the lowest-ever Premier League points total, which is the meagre 15 points achieved by Sunderland in 2005-06.

With Clumsy Claude Davis suspended following his dismissal last week, it looked like Lewin Nyatanga would come back into contention in defence. Lewin did indeed return - though at right back, to make his Premier League debut - with Kenny Miller and Darren Moore returning to the starting line-up.

Pompey, with a mediocre home record, had their African contingent of four players absent with four players away on African Nations Cup duty but a new £5.5m signing in Lassana Diarra making his debut.

It was a memorable debut for Nyatanga as he scored after three minutes. Derby started brightly and Lewin was first to react to Fagan’s header that crashed the Pompey bar. An away goal and a lead! In an enterprising first half Derby held their own, but Benjani levelled for Portsmouth after 38 minutes. Horribly, Derby allowed the same player a free header just three minutes later so it was 2-1 to Pompey at the break.

Before that, Danny Mills had been forced off with a knee injury with Todd and substitute Eddie Lewis switching to full backs and Nyatanga joining Darren Moore in central defence. Pompey’s power told in the end as Benjani completed his hat trick early in the second half and they ran out comfortable winners.

Miller had missed a golden chance soon after the Rams had taken the lead and (rather like Howard’s penalty miss which could have doubled Derby’s advantage against Blackburn), the failure to capitalise on that chance gave the opposition heart and was probably the turning point of the game. Pompey won 3-1 in a canter and Derby have conceded 50 goals so far this season.

Emanuel ‘Tito’ Villa had a lively game and was a signpost to a better future - and Ghaly, pleasingly, continues to impress - but this Derby side, depleted and unbalanced by injuries and without the squad depth to muster the quality that counts, cannot compete at Premier League level.

Jewell acknowledged that Derby were well beaten in the second half and rued the ‘usual schoolboy errors’ in his defence. It’s driving him to the brink, he says! It isn’t easy either for the manager to attract players to a rock-bottom team but Jewell must persist in the further strengthening of his squad. He’s already declared that the team will be unrecognisable by the time that summer 2008 turns into autumn.

Other struggling clubs, two of whom will accompany Derby back into the Championship, have all spent money on reinforcements in a week where Chelsea paid £24m on another two additions to their squad. So Jewell’s search for quality players that can get results continues.

Respect as ever to the travelling Rams’ fans, a healthy contingent again (1,200) giving total vocal backing to an inadequate team. The manager commented: "the supporters were terrific - they deserve better".

It was a view interestingly endorsed on Radio 5 Live’s sports round up this Sunday morning when a journalist dismissed the Keegan hoo-hah on Tyneside with a suggestion that Geordies should rid themselves of the misguided notion that they are somehow exceptional and that the returning ‘messiah’ had some super ordinate evangelical crusade to complete. Surely, all fans think their own club is exceptional?

The journo’s opinion was that the Toon missed out by not securing Harry Redknapp as their new manager, that Pompey had played ‘wonderful, winning football’ against Derby and that Rams fans were still at Fratton Park in large numbers despite already having lost 10 away games. He acknowledged that we too have a strong sense of identity and never stopped singing. Oh - and even Derby have taken four points off those expensive Geordie misfits!

The Rams now travel to Hillsborough on Tuesday night to replay at Sheffield Wednesday in the Cup-tie they managed to salvage from the Pride Park game earlier in January. A win would be a big boost and the Fourth Round home tie against struggling Preston might give Rams fans some cheer this season. I won’t hold my breath, however!


This time last year, the Rams broke clear of their joint leadership of the Championship with Birmingham City in RamsWeek 3 when Steve Howard’s first half goal proved enough to beat lowly Southend United at Roots Hall.

Billy Davies was tracking West Ham full back Tyrone Mears as a possible loan target as well as other permanent recruits, in the New Year buying spree that now seems misplaced in terms of both quantity and quality for the level he expected the Rams to be playing at in 2007/08.

Hull City were keen on Derby midfielder Adam Bolder and the Tigers were even keener on ex-Rams’ manager Phil Brown, as chairman Adam Pearson took on The Orange One to push City further towards security in the Championship. Happy days!

Photo: Action Images



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