Sat 14 Oct - Posted in Breaking News
Time to read: 4mins
Consistency has been the buzz word this week.
When you look back at September, it’s easy to see why.
Against Hull City, all 11 players that started – in and out of possession – were superb, the best we have seen for a while now. Say hello to Derby’s Jekyll.
They needed a little help along the way. Sebastian Larsson’s missed penalty acted as a catalyst, only for the Rams though, and with their chests pumped out they were relentless and thoroughly deserved their 5-0 mauling on the night.
Take the Barnsley Carabao Cup match out of the equation and how you can go from the highs of that win over Hull to the lows of Bristol City is unfathomable. It was chalk and cheese, unexpected, incomparable and bordered on bizarre. In this case, there’s no other way to look at it. Say hello to Derby’s Hyde.
Whether they deserved it or not, Derby were ahead at the break, but were so disjointed after the break, lacklustre, and it was almost as if the players went back into their shells. No side, having been ahead, should lose 4-1 – never mind one that hit a recently relegated Premier League side for five the week prior.
Is there really a big difference from playing at home to away?
That is a question that, as an ex-player myself, I have been asked a lot down the years and my answer is always yes. You need to have far more resilience and bottle about you.
It’s easy at Pride Park for Derby to be flamboyant, create chances, score goals and dictate possession, but, as the cliché goes, the onus is always on the home side and that means on your travels, you have got to be able to soak up a bit more pressure, you have to be far more organised and you have to be able to make the most of your chances.
It was clear after the Bristol City defeat that something had to change away from home and I thought we saw that in the draws at Brentford and Cardiff City.
Maybe expectedly, there was a bit of disappointment in the air after the 1-1 draw at home to Birmingham City, who had lost six in a row before coming to Pride Park Stadium, and it felt to me like Gary’s side had been written off heading into back-to-back away games before they had even started.
Brentford were first up and the game got me thinking about a Simpson’s episode.
There’s one where Homer Simpson turns his hand to boxing and towards the end of the show, finds himself in a ring with Drederick Tatum, a huge fictional boxer who is a World Heavyweight Champion.
Homer, repeatedly, took punch after punch and looking back, due to Derby’s inability to hold on to possession, it was like watching the same thing unfold in West London as Brentford, with 76 per cent possession, huffed and puffed, before eventually getting their rewards – unlike Homer, unfortunately, the Rams did not have a Moe Szyslak around to save them with five minutes left.
Enough of the Simpsons references. From a football perspective, yes Derby had to defend for their lives and did not do well enough in possession, but it was the step in the right direction that I wanted to see after the Bristol City match.
The 0-0 draw at Cardiff City, the early pace-setters, represented another step forward too.
All of those qualities I mentioned earlier in this piece, qualities that are needed to be successful away from home, were on show in Wales before the international break.
It was the best away performance of the season, without a shadow of a doubt in my opinion. Now, ahead of a huge month, it’s time to find a happy equilibrium and a middle ground where we are seeing that and the sort of performance we saw against Hull City on a far more regular and consistent basis.
That’s something that not only Derby are trying to find at this point in time, however.
By all accounts, Sunday’s opponents, our East Midlands rivals, Nottingham Forest, are still searching for that too; as are Sheffield Wednesday who follow after that.
They aren’t the only two sides that would love to string together some consistency at the moment, because they all know what a run of positive results at this stage can do for you heading into Christmas.
At this point, the table shows Derby sitting 15th and seven points off the top six with a game in hand, but that is a picture that can change very quickly.
Aston Villa are proof of that.
During the same weekend Gary’s Rams beat Hull, Steve Bruce’s side drew 0-0 at home to Brentford, leaving them 18th in the table.
A further draw and four consecutive wins later, in which four clean sheets were recorded too, the Villans are now seventh and are the form team heading into October’s fixtures.
Can Derby do the same thing, who knows. But after showcasing the qualities needed to be a success both home and away, it’s time to see their Jekyll on a far more consistent basis.
