Nottingham Forest 3 v Derby County 0 - EFL LC R2

Tuesday 27th August 2019
Carabao EFL League Cup Second Round
at the City Ground
Nottingham Forest (2) 3
Albert Adomah 25
Joe Lolley 35
João Carvalho 79
Derby County (0) 0
Attendance: 26,971 (inc. 3,331 away fans)

Blimey! It's only that there Stuart Pearce bloke over there.

Nottingham Forest:
Samba, Ribeiro, Figueireda, Worrall (C) (Rodriguez 83), Cash, Bostock, Mir, Semedo, Lolley (Silva 68), Adomah, Johnson (Carvalho 57’)
Unused subs - Muric, Grabban, Jenkinson, Ameobi
Derby County:
Hamer, Shinnie (Bird 83), Paterson, Clarke, Evans, Bennett, Holmes, Davies (C), Sibley (Marriott 58), Buchanan, Whittaker (Mitchell-Lawson 70)
Unused subs - Roos, Keogh, Lawrence, Knight

When the tickets went on general sale for this game, I enquired whether it might be a good idea to print mine off at home, even though I'm an old fashioned Luddite type, who still prefers to have an actual proper ticket stub in my hand. But I was assured that there was no need to worry and that all paper tickets would be delivered in plenty of time. However, it transpired, that this misleading information, was a blooming great big fib. 

The queue of people who'd turned up early, to explain to the staff in the ticket office, that their brief(s) for the game hadn't arrived, while requesting that a 'duplicate' be printed off, because the postman hadn't done his job properly, stretched right out of the building and around the corner when I turned up.

On reaching the front of the throng, who were all there for exactly the same reason, the nice lady behind the counter insisted that mine had been sent out, but said she would print one off for me, before reaching into a box and passing me the 'replacement' copy in an envelope, that was addressed to me.

"Hmm... a magic printer!" I joked. Obviously my ticket, along with a whole load of others, had been sitting there waiting to be collected all along. So why the funking hell, didn't they just say that tonight was a print at home, or collect in person arrangement only? I'm sure nobody would've minded. 

But what I would really like to know, is who's pocketed all of the extra pennies, taken for booking fees and postage?

Derby had made ten changes to their line up from their previous game, for tonight's League Cup tie, while Forest, who are obviously taking this competition more seriously than their local rivals, made a mere eight.
The post match statistics suggest that this was a far more evenly matched game that the final scoreline indicated, but while the visitors did indeed have plenty of the ball, what they lacked was the same kind of impetus and momentum that Sabri Lamouchi's side enjoyed.
I'm quite sure that none of the Forest fans who were present, cheering their team on to victory against their fiercest of rivals, nor any of us neutrals, or even the hordes of Derby fans who were haemorrhaging out of the ground long before the final whistle, were under any kind of illusion that this had been a finely balanced and close run encounter.

Phillip Cocu's side, the team formerly known as 'Frank Lampard's Derby County', were well and truly 'Ram-raided' tonight. And that dear reader (I know you're still out their pal and it means the world to me) is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as seen through the eyes of a completely impartial onlooker.
There are those who might suggest that I possibly had a slight bias towards tonight's home side, over their Derbyshire visitors.
But anybody who actually knows me, would never level such an allegation my way.

The truth of the matter is, besides the games that I watch elsewhere, out of a sense of partisan duty and loyalty, I also turn out for a lot of neutral games... and the fact that I have visited the City Ground more often that Pride Park, is purely down to the financial burden of my football watching exploits. Derby County, along with Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, QPR and the like, charge way too much at the gate... and though I love getting out and about watching Championship football on a regular basis, I'll be buggered if I could even justify, shelling out the best part of forty quid on a match ticket, to myself, for a game that doesn't include a team that I actually support.

Anyway, enough of me rabbiting on; goals in the first half by Albert Adomah and Joe Lolley, put Derby on the ropes and they never really recovered from that double body blow.

Adomah opened the scoring, when he got onto the end of  Rafa Mir's flick on from Lolley's, before nudging the ball just inside the post, beyond the reach of Ben Hamer.
And with ten minutes of the first half still remaining, Adomah inflicted further damage on the Rams, when he picked out Lolley with a well weighted cross that he met head on, literally, while on the run, to power the ball into the back of the visitors net, right in front of the visiting fans, who'd travelled across the A52 in good numbers.

The visitors did seem to rally in the second half, as the game trundled along towards that stage where the next goal would prove vital, but as the clock ran down, with ten minutes remaining, Joao Carvalho, a popular cult figure among the City Ground faithful, came off of the bench for his first appearance of the current campaign, after suffering from an injury he picked up during pre-season... and he enjoyed a massive slice of luck, when Derby's Curtis Davies' attempted clearance ricocheted back towards the goal off of him and past Hamer. Three-nil, game over and a mass exodus amongst the visiting fans who were still braving this one out ensued.
FT: Nottingham Forest 3 v Derby County 0

I spotted some quality stickers near the City Ground tonight

Footnote: Added Wednesday 28th August

Having seen off Derby in last night's game, Forest will now face Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in the Third Round.