For Those Who Could not Attend

For Those who Could Not Attend. Saturday 21st April
Visitors - Middlesborough.
Referee Lee Probert
Crowd. 28,096
Weather/Conditions. Dry and warm
Pitch Condition.Immaculate and good for football.

Team. Carson, Wisdom, Pearce, Davis, Baird.
Huddlestone, Ledley, Lawrence, Weimann, Vydra, Nugent.

Subs. Palmer, Weimann, Pearce, Roos, Hanson , Jerome, Lesley
A game which both sides desperately wanted to win.

It was game that mattered enormously to both clubs. Derby started with effort and really brightly for the first 10 minutes. Nugent had a shot from distance that was just wide with the goalie well beaten. Had it gone in the match could well have finished differently. Boro looked like a side in the play-offs. You could see they also knew they had to win. They were rough and ruthless if Derby threatened and the referee let many things go that others would have blown for and some of which might even have warranted a yellow card or two in addition to the ones issued. Within the first 20 minutes, Boro looked very threatening with many dangerous crosses into Derby’y penalty area. They gradually started to dominate and Derby found it very hard to exert any control and after 19 minutes Traore once again crossed into our area for Besic to control the ball without challenge so that it ws easy for him to pick his spot in Carson’s goal. Derby played with much endeavour and effort but always lacked that extra bit of combosure and quality to make it count. There was certainly no lack of trying and desire to win - but just a lack of match winning skill.

After half time the match continued in its initial mode, plenty of effort always with
Boro looking the more dangerous. The referee continued to stay away from a lot of rule enforcement, letting several cases of severe and quite violent obstruction to take place without pulling it up. Then again from the right wing, a crosss fun Assombalonga completely unmarked on the left of our goal and he had lots of time to pick his spot and slot it in last Carson.

Our MOTM was Tom Lawrence by a head and shoulders. Keogh had a good game as did Curtis Davies. Wisdom was very poor and seemed to be not interested and couldn’t be bothered. Fossie was not as bad as usual but by no means was he very effective. Vydra really put in a lot of effort but got no protection from a very uninolved referee. Britt Assombalonga slotted in a second after good work by Adama Traore to seal the game. Too late, Curtis Davis was manhandled in the area and Nugent scored a consolation goal.

It struck me, as I watched, that Ayala and Ryan Shotton looked much better players than they were for Derby. In fact it occurs to me that quite a few players have been through the Derby system and emerged as better players one they had left.

If we are to maintain a faint chance of the play-offs we will need to beat Colin’s Cardiff on Tuesday evening