Derby County 3 v Birmingham City 1 - EFL Championship

Saturday 3rd November 2018
SkyBet EFL Championship

at Pride Park

Derby County (0) 3
Mason Bennett 53,
Harry Wilson 55,
Jack Marriott 73

Birmingham City (1) 1
Lukas Jutkiewicz 10
Attendance: 28,114 (inc. 3,200 away fans)

Derby County:
Scott Carson, Jayden Bogle, Richard Keogh (C), Curtis Davies, Craig Forsyth, Martin Waghorn (Mason Bennett 15), Harry Wilson, Tom Huddlestone, Duane Holmes (Bradley Johnson 90+2), Tom Lawrence, Jack Marriott (Florian  Jozefzoon 90+3)
Unused subs - Fikayo Tomori, Kelle Roos, David Nugent, Scott Malone
Birmingham City:
Lee Camp, Maxime Colin, Michael Morrison (C), Harlee Dean, Kieran Pederson, Jota, Maikel Kieftenbeld, Gary Gardner (Wes Harding 74), Connor Mahoney, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Che Adams
Unused subs - Marc Roberts, Craig Gardner, Viv Solomon Otabor, Connal Trueman (GK), Beryly Lubala, Charlie Lakin, 

"Let's go this way", they said... "it looks like a good short cut", D'oh!

Half time heralded a seismic shift in the game, whereby: the afternoon thus far had belonged to Birmingham before the break; but after the restart, the hosts well and truly tore it from their grasp and all but owned the remaining forty five minutes.

An eleven game unbeaten run, culminating in four consecutive wins, has been something of a magic carpet ride for the success starved Blues faithful this term, particularly after the last two seasons, where back to back, close brushes with relegation were becoming the

norm, as they narrowly survive the drop on the final day, on both occasions. But a second half power play by a rampant County pulled the rug under them today.

Blues will now have to regain their focus and take on board the lessons that they will have taken out of this second half, when it was demonstrated, that in this topsy-turvy world of Championship football, where on their day any team are capable of pulling off a win against any other, even the slightest lapse in concentration or momentary drop in tempo can, and probably will, be punished.

Clough and Taylor in need of some TLC and a damn good scrub.

The local radio commentator said that the home side had upped their work rate by 10% in the second half, but I would suggest that though he was probably spot on, if you multiplied that by the small but ultimately significant amount that Birmingham took their foot of the gas at the same time, you have the sum total for what turned out to be a winning formula.
Take nothing away from Derby, they deserved to win on the strength of the way that they came out after the interval, like a gung-ho and possessed fighting unit; but Garry Monk's side didn't quite apply the brakes on the Rams, in the same way that they have been doing to opposition sides during their impressive run of results of late... and it showed.
Hopefully Blues have taken those shortcomings on board and will work out and implement a solution when Hull City visit St. Andrew's next weekend.

The Tigers, for their part, are currently only one place off of the bottom of the table, but have picked up six points out of their last two games, namely: a 0-1 away win at Bolton Wanderers last weekend and an eye-catching 1-0 win over promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion at the KCOM Stadium and the threat they pose mustn't be taken lightly.
I'm sure that the Birmingham players will be acutely aware of just how much of a lift a couple of good results can give a side sitting in a lowly position, especially this year, in a division, that is constantly in a state of flux. In actual fact, if the score had stayed the same as it was at half time, Blues would've leapfrogged over the Rams into a play off berth. 'What a crazy world we're living in' as Joe Brown and his Bruvvers used to say.

Derby County play Aston Villa at home next week, when they will be selling tickets for the game for twelve pounds less than they were today, which if nothing else, shows which of the 'Second City' clubs is a big draw on their travels and which one host clubs need to offer cut price ticket deals to turn out for.
The following weekend, another fully sold out travelling Blues support head to Villa Park on the Sunday, 

#TOGETHERFORLEICESTER

while Derby host troubled Sheffield Wednesday, who were hammered 0-4 by the new Championship leaders Norwich City at Hillsborough today, which led to some Owls supporters verbally confronting their chairman Dejphon Chansiri as he left the ground... though to be fair, he gave as good as he got, while another Wednesday supporter filmed the embarrassing spectacle and put it on YouTube, erm... there is nothing like making your own club look like a laughing stock.
The home supporters didn't really have a great deal to shout about until the second half, but the solidly packed away corner was in good voice from the off... and the delirium, euphoria and (almost expectant) optimism that filled the air when the visitors went ahead was quite breathtaking.

Maxime Colin linked up with Lukas Jutkiewicz and fed the ball wide to Jota on the right hand side of midfield, as Jutkiewicz made a run forward to take up a position on the edge of the area, Jota fed the ball forward the Che Adams who ran at Richard Keogh, before turning and rolling the ball to his left to Jutkiewicz, who wrong footed Curtis Davies by taking an extra touch, before stroking the ball into the Rams net via the left upright, beyond the despairing dive of Scott Carson.

Former Derby County keeper Lee Camp, who has represented England at U21 level as well as Northern Ireland's first team (for the benefit of those who question the accuracy of the "England's number one! chant), made a good save from Harry Wilson's dipping free kick, as he also fended off taunts from the Rams fans, while the ever reliable Kieran Pedersen was on hand to block Jack Marriott's shot from Craig Forsyth's shot. While, in the meantime Martin Waghorn limped off of the pitch to be replaced by the live-wire Mason Bennett.

Please refrain from pointing that video camera at us goodly sir

A knock forward by Pedersen caused panic and consternation between Keogh and Davies in the Derby defence and the former's attempted headed clearance was poor, which gave Gary Gardner the opportunity to get to the ball and burst through the pair of them, but his run towards the goal, inside the area was curtailed when Davies tripped him with a clumsy challenge.
The home fans collectively held their breath while those in the 'blue corner' began celebrating the fact that they had won a penalty... but, the referee Chris Kavavagh waved 'play on'. What a swizz!

Didn't you lot used to wear white and navy a few years ago?

I might not have had the most 'impartial' view of the incident from my vantage point in the away seats, but having watched it back after the game... Derby got lucky! 

Maybe Frank Lampard had agreed to have a selfie with Mr Kavavagh and sign his programme for him later on.
Camp denied his first ever professional club with a save from Marriott in first half stoppage time, while had the other end, Harlee Dean had a shot blocked, and as the rebound fell for Jutkiewicz, he struck it first time with a thunderous volley, that crashed off of Carson's chest, which allowed Davies to scramble the ball away as Michael Morrison homed in for the kill.
Oh well... fortune favours the brave I s'pose, and at least Carson had got in the way of Jutkiwicz's strike, though I'm not entirely convinced that he knew very much about it.
HT: Rams 0 v Blues 1

Pano-ram-ic view of Pride Park

Parental advisory: Blues fans of a nervous disposition might want to skip reading about the second half and go and hide behind the sofa, it's even scarier than when that weird Doctor Who music used to come on back in your adolescence, when there were only two telly channels available and virtually every household in the country had to watch the same shit all the time.
Derby tour into Blues from the moment that the Frank Lampard fan club blew his whistle to get the game back underway.
Camp did well to keep out Holmes shot by the foot of his post less than a minute after the restart... and moments later, Blues keeper thwarted Holmes again, positioning himself well to gather a long and ambitious shot.

"And this one is my Vulcan death grip... try to get out of that!"

Mason Bennett, a player who made his league debut for the Rams when he was still only fifteen years of age, pulled a goal back for the home side, eight minutes into the second half, when he slid in to steer Craig Forsyth's left wing delivery just inside the back post.
Within two minutes of Bennett's strike, Derby were ahead, after Harlee Dean wrestled the goalscorer to the ground and Wilson's resulting free kick flew past Camp, as it deflected off of Jutkiewicz while he was attempting to block the Rams number seven's shot. Wilson is on a season long loan from Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool and his signing is something of a coup for Derby.

The hosts second goal meant that Birmingham weren't in a position to sit back and play the containment game any more and as they were forced into committing players forward in numbers, Derby survived a close call from a Pedersen cross and broke from end to end at speed, with the ball ending up at the feet of the advancing Marriott whose first touch was fairly unconvincing but he chased the stray ball and reached it just before it reached the bi-line and managed to hook the ball towards Camp's goal, it skidded along the grass, through the former Derby youth team player's legs  and ended up in the far corner of the goal.

The Rams saw the game out comfortably after building up a two goal cushion, and closed ranks to keep out the visitors as Garry Monk made changes to Birmingham's formation and personnel, but Derby kept up their high tempo approach and nipped any lingering hopes of a late comeback in the bud.
In fact, had it not been for Camp turning another free kick against the post late in the day, an afternoon that had started so promisingly for Blues, could've finished off a whole lot worse.
FT: Derby County 3 v Birmingham City 1

A disappointing second half for Blues in the end; but hey! A couple of months ago an eleven and a half game unbeaten run never looked even like being a credible scenario, did it?
So onward and upward.

I saw Derby earlier in the season, against lowly Ipswich Town, and they were awful in that game, but they're obviously building up some real momentum now.