Keep Calm and Carry On Winning: Derby County 1 Coventry City 0

It wasn’t the comprehensive win I’d called for, but it was a win.

Thanks to Frank Fielding, Gary McSheffrey was denied by a really good reaction save at one end and then, two minutes later, Callum Ball passed it into the Sky Blues’ net from Craig Bryson’s cut-back, after a nice through ball from Green.  On such fine margins, many a Championship match is decided and the Rams are finishing on the right side of the line more often than not this season.

The victory was extremely hard-fought and Coventry did well in the early stages, passing the ball around like a team who believed they could crack the top six, let alone get out of trouble.  But if you think GSE are bad owners, have a good look at the Sky Blues under SISU.

I’ve mentioned SISU several times on this blog, as Jeremy Keith tried to railroad them into Pride Park, once his trainset looked set to explode on him.  A hedge fund with no real visibility to fans and no apparent interest in football, they have consequently starved Coventry of funds and Lukas Jutkiewicz disappeared to Middlesbrough the day before this game, for a reported £1.5m.  That was lucky for us, as with Jutkiewicz’s striking ability, they might well have taken advantage of their one of their bright spells in the first half.

As it was, Clive Platt – 34, ex-Walsall, Rochdale, Notts County, Peterborough, MK Dons, Colchester – toiled in Jutkiewicz’s place and Freddie Eastwood, the one time Southend goalscoring sensation, made a cameo appearance from the bench.  Eastwood had previously been completely frozen out at the Ricoh and told to find another club, but there were no takers.  He will now be given a second chance, out of necessity.

In the second half, the Rams gradually put the squeeze on Coventry, who were no longer able to knock the ball around in peace for any sustained period, due to Derby’s energy and workrate.  The clinical move that led to the goal must have felt like a knife in the heart for Andy Thorn, but in truth, Derby ultimately looked the stronger team.

Play-off push?

With all this winning going on, my good mate Burnsy has let it all go to his head and started wondering aloud if a top six finish might be possible this season.  Being a bit of an anorak, like me, he did some statistical crunching and came up with some evidence that it might be on.

One good stat is that last season, we only managed three wins and three draws out of 14 games with top seven clubs.  This season, we have already secured three wins and two draws from just nine games against the clubs currently above us.  Home games against Middlesbrough and Reading will give us the chance to improve on last year, although anything gained from away trips to Southampton, Cardiff and Birmingham will go down in the bonus column.

Against the clubs in the bottom eight, last season, we averaged 1.69 points per game.  We’re miles better than that so far this season, with 2.33 points per game (seven wins from nine).  Watford, Ipswich and Nottingham Forest all still have to visit Pride Park.

These nerdy nuggets aside, generally, all that needs to be said is that we’re picking up more results and points than last season and if we can maintain our current form through the rest of the season, we’d get to 70 points – four points shy of the average total for sixth place over the last three seasons.

And the form so far this term includes the dreadful blip in November, when we lost five games straight.  I can’t see us suffering another run as bad as that, unless – and it’s a big unless – we have another injury crisis.

As I pointed out to Joe, all is rosy in the garden at the moment – a settled first team, all playing well, in the groove – but what happens if Jamie Ward gets injured, for example?  There is nobody to replace him.  Ben Davies could fill in there, perhaps – and did have a great run of assists early in the season, before his form ebbed away.  The other alternative would be to play Steve Davies or Nathan Tyson out of position, or a loan signing, which is always a gamble.

There won’t be a drive to push for the play-offs this season by splashing money around a la 2006/7 – although England U’20 striker Ryan Noble did arrive this week on an initial month’s loan from Sunderland – and I think that’s for the best.  After all, it didn’t exactly work under Billy Davies, did it?  Our form actually declined once the likes of Teale and McEveley turned up and we missed out on automatic promotion, which we were hot favourites for, at one point.

Incidentally, it heartens me that we have a manager who can be trusted not to splurge daft amounts of money in the incontinent manner of Davies in that January window, or Sven-Goran Eriksson for Leicester this year.

After the expensively-assembled Foxes lost 2-1 to Barnsley at the King Power Stadium on Saturday, an exasperated Nigel Pearson told the BBC, “In terms of how this squad has been compiled, I’m not even going to go there.”  He also accused the players of having “delusions of grandeur”.  After they were beaten 2-1 at Doncaster Rovers last month, Pearson’s main was that the team weren’t working hard enough.

With the possible exception of Chris Maguire, that is not a charge that could be levelled against Derby’s players this season, even if none of them commanded multi-million pound transfer fees.

We have seen the damage that can be caused when a club is promoted too soon, all too clearly.  However, a top ten finish this term would set us up to have a genuine go at the play-offs next season.

LEAGUE POSITION: 8th

LEAGUE FORM: WWWWLW

ODDS TO BEAT NEXT OPPONENTS: Burnley (A) 4/1

Why not?  Burnley have lost at home to Portsmouth, Leicester, Leeds, Reading and Boro this season, so Turf Moor is not a fortress.  That said, their form has improved in recent weeks.

It’ll be a tough one and a draw to keep the unbeaten run going would be very welcome indeed.

GOALS:
Theo Robinson 8
Steve Davies 5
Craig Bryson 4
Callum Ball 3
Jamie Ward 3
Jeff Hendrick 2
Chris Maguire 2
Tomasz Cywka 1
Paul Green 1
Tamas Priskin 1
(own goals 1)

ASSISTS:
Ben Davies 9
Craig Bryson 6
Jamie Ward 4
Lee Croft 2
Paul Green 2
Gareth Roberts 2
Theo Robinson 2
Tomasz Cywka 1
Steve Davies 1
Jeff Hendrick 1
Mark O’Brien 1
Jason Shackell 1
Nathan Tyson 1

Share this with other people...