Planning Ahead

With The Rams now out of the Play Off chase, Phillip Cocu can start making moves and start to implement his plans in the transfer market!

Centre Half Mike Te Wierik has already been added to the squad, but there a other needs as we look ahead to the 202/21 season.

Top of the list will be a goalkeeper. Neither Kelle Roos nor Ben Hamer who is on loan from Huddersfield are a long term solution. Both have made costly errors and a safe pair of hands is needed! I would suggest that two goalkeepers wouldn't go amiss! The back up has to be good enough to take over when the first choice is injured.

Morgan Fox the former Sheffield Wednesday Left Back has been rumoured to be on Derby's radar and already people have been asking why we would need another player in that position. Well the fact is Craig Forsyth has had some off games since the return though he has done tremendously well coming back from a third ACL injury. Max Lowe still hasn't made the position his and Scott Malone would appear to have dropped down the pecking order.

A winger will surely be on the list of needs. Florian Jozefzoon has failed to impress again and could be heading for the exit door.

Uo front Chris Martin has yet to sign a new contract though I believe he will, but Jack Marriott has struggled with injuries and failed to make much of an impact. Another striker is desirable!

Og the youngsters that have made it through from the Under 18/23 teams Max Bird, Louie Sibley and Jason Knight look to have made valid claims to be part of the first team squad when we restart.

Morgan Whittaker is highly rated, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him loaned out to gain some experience. 

The EFL charge of us exceeding P&S limits is unlikely to be concluded before this season ends and if Mel Morris's claims are correct I see us avoiding a points deduction. If the decision goes against us and we start on minus points that will obviously have an effect on which players will sign for us.

Fingers crossed all will end well.

New Contract for Martin?

Earlier this season many Rams fans were discussing about whether Chris Martin should be given a chance to win a place back in the Derby County side.

Some fans were in favour whilst others weren't and some of the negative comments were quite derogatory to say the very least! This for a man who has been our best striker many times.

Martin originally arrived on loan when Nigel Clough was in the managerial hot seat and played thirteen games scoring a couple of goals. His performances were steady but not spectacular.

Martin became a full transfer prior to the commencement of the 2013/14 season and it he was signed on a free transfer from Norwich City. I for one really didn't know what to expect from him, but in those days we usually bought from the bargain basement. 

To say his first full season was good would be massively understating it! In fifty one official appearances he managed to rack up twenty five goals! He had started well under Clough and when Steve McClaren took over, he flourished! Not only did Martin come up with the goals but he also had a hand in setting up players for many more! He got noticed for his hold up play and he showed he could also take a pretty mean free kick too!

the following season he grabbed twenty one goals in forty two games and the year after fifteen in forty nine games. Obviously these figures include cop games and play offs.

After McClaren and then Paul Clement had come and gone, Nigel Pearson took the reins and we entered a period with some of the worst football I've ever seen by Derby County sides. Pearson signed Matej Vydra who I'm convinced would thrive playing off Martin like he did with Troy Deeney at Watford, but Pearson let Martin go out on loan!

Vydra struggled in the loan striker role and wasn't a success til the next season when he played alongside David Nugent, but Martin had started well at Fulham.

There's many figures banded about and some suggest a hefty loan fee was paid by the Cottagers for Martin's services. He seemed happy and settled and then things changed!

Fulham had been given an option to buy Martin at the end of the loan spell. I believe they would have bought him too had it not been for one thing! Steve McClaren was starting a second spell in charge of The Rams! He didn't waste any time in stating that he wanted Chris Martin back at Pride Park!

Obviously this didn't go down too well with the Fulham hierarchy who dug their heels in and kept Martin for the remainder of the season despite McClaren persuading him to extend his Derby contract! Not the greatest lesson of diplomacy!

McClaren was dismissed for a second time before he got the chance to use a returning Martin and Martin himself was frozen out of the first team squad for two seasons.

Two unproductive loan spells at Reading and Hull City followed and his goals return was very low! Now whether it was because those sides weren't playing him in his familiar role or the fact he was fighting colitis I don't know! Its a horrible disease and would certainly have a bearing on his physical output.

Philip Cocu gave Martin a chance this season to stake a claim for a team place and he has grabbed the chance! He's not going to score twenty goals but he is beginning to look more like the Chris Martin the Derby fans love. He has scored late goals against both Leeds and Forest which will always go down well and he's proving himself to be an asset to the club again.

Being out of contract when this season finally ends leaved us all wondering what will the next episode bring. I'm hopeful that something can be sorted out by the club and the player that means he will still be a Derby County player next season.

In my opinion this free transfer has been one of our best pieces of business in the last fifteen years!

Martin to the Rescue

In what one can only describe as a dull East Midlands Derby, we somehow managed to do a smash and grab for a point in time added on!

Despite dominating possession, we really didn't test our rivals for the majority of the game. Their football isn't very pretty, but it is effective. It's got a touch of the Billy Davies style about it. 

This was probably one of our worst performances of the season. Sure enough our passes in the main were finding white shirts, but when you are forced to pass back to the goalkeeper whilst in the opponents half, questions must be asked. 

Forest will be kicking themselves. They created chances only to see them squandered. Lolley scored a good goal to put them ahead, but I'm of the opinion that Hamer could have done better. 

It was the final third where we seem to have been stuck for ideas. Once we got into their half, they had 7 or 8 players back to block our crosses. They were then a threat on the counter attack.

Chris Martin has never previously scored against Forest which is quite remarkable looking at his record for us overall. He was there though when their keeper flapped right at the death to touch the ball over the line.

It's a bit of a head scratcher that we were so poor yesterday as earlier in the season when we weren't playing well, we were unfortunate to lose at their place.

Martyn Waghorn will now be missing for three games after receiving a red card for a foul on Yates. Lawrence and Wisdom both likely to be missing on Wednesday night at The Hawthorns. Lawrence definitely will be missing as he serves the last game of a three match ban. 

Cocu's options are reduced, but it would just be the Derby way to go and win there!

Its that time again!

Derby continued their winning run with a fine 0-1 victory at Deepdale and now sit in seventh place just one point outside the play off zone!

However, it now time to get to the main event o0f the week! The third East Midlands Derby of the year! Following two losses 3-0 in the League Cup and 1-0 in the league, Philip Cocu and the team will be eager to stop our red rivals from completing a hat trick of victories in one season.

To be fair the league match at The City Ground was a tight affair that could have gone either way and it was a defensive error that gifted them a winning goal.

Full credit to the new regime acrid the A52 they have turned the club around and seem to have at long last found a good manager in Sabri Lamouchi.

I would Arte their current team as the best they have had in twenty years. We will have to be on the top of our game!

Key players to watch out for are Ben Watson in midfield who we will have to keep quiet, Joe Lolley who has been a bargain signing and of course Lewis Grabban. Grabban scores a lot of goals from close range, but the point is that he is there to knock them in.

They are strong in taking chances, very good on the counter attack and also at set pieces. Their only real weaknesses are they are often caught offside and they aren't the most dominant in the air.

This is a game where studying footage of their past games will be vital for Cocu and ensuring he sets up to exploit any weaknesses he can spot!

I would probably go with a similar line up to the game at Preston. Hopefully we can see a similar sort of performance!