Bill's Take: Can The Rams Find Success & Then Keep Hold Of It?

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.” - Irving Berlin, American songwriter

Before last Friday’s match at Hull, things were looking comfortable for the Rams. The club was sitting nicely in fourth place in the Championship, well inside the playoff places, six points ahead of the seventh-placed team.

Message board posters were predicting defeat at the KC Stadium, and apparently not too concerned about it; Hull are a good team, right?

As a result of Friday’s win at leaders Hull, things have changed a little; perhaps we are not now quite so comfortable. Suddenly, we are still in third place but a top two place looks to be well within the team’s grasp.

Fixtures need to be looked at in a new light; Sunday’s match at Sheffield Wednesday now looks like a match we ought to look forward to winning, rather than be satisfied with a draw. Then the following weekend’s home match against current unbeaten leaders Brighton — well, that looks a tasty one, doesn’t it?

Defensively, the Rams are looking solid. Scott Carson looks extremely capable in goal, and the back four is settling into a composed and consistent unit despite the season-ending injury to Craig Forsyth. Christie, Keogh, Shackell and Forsyth look at the moment like filling the back four positions for the rest of the season, unless injury interferes — despite players such as Baird, Pearce and Shotton looking for a game.

Four clean sheets out of the last five matches against some quality opposition show that the defence is coming together really well.

The central midfield players will continue to see some changes simply because of the amount of talent the club now has there; with Craig Bryson approaching match fitness, there looks to be five players — Thorne, Johnson, Butterfield, Hendrick and Bryson — competing for at most three places. The only big change I could see occurring in that situation is when Will Hughes regains fitness.

The one area that for me the club needs to address is the attack. An odd change has taken place in the last five matches, mainly revolving around the wide-man positions.

In the first thirteen league matches of the season, the Rams scored eighteen goals, spread among Martin (8), Ince (3), Russell (3), Johnson (2), Thorne (1) and Bent (1); not a huge total, but just about adequate with a good defence.

In the last five matches, things have changed greatly: eight goals have been scored by Weimann (3), Butterfield (3), Keogh(1) and Thorne (1). The goals per game have improved, but here is the worry for me: where is Chris Martin?

Martin has often been referred to as the Rams’ talisman; a player who is absolutely essential to the proper functioning of the team. Yet in the last five matches, Martin has not scored. He has had similar dry spells before, of course; all strikers do, but if the current Rams squad is to be successful, goals have to come from Martin, Ince and Russell - Weimann and Butterfield are not going to score the goals which will lead the Rams to promotion.

The big change for the Rams over the last five matches, of course, is the inclusion of Andreas Weimann in place of first the unavailable Tom Ince, and more recently in place of Johnny Russell.

Weimann has done well; his three goals in those five matches have all helped the Rams to wins but Martin, Ince and Russell have not scored in those matches. I am one of the last people who will ever advocate changing a winning team, but I think for the Rams to continue to perform at their best, we need Ince and Russell to be the wide men.

I believe this combination of Tom and Johnny is more likely to get the best out of Chris Martin. For me, Martin has looked isolated and ineffective recently, and this does not augur well for the long term.

We will find out over the coming weeks what Paul Clement’s plan is for the Rams attack, and whether Chris Martin can rediscover his mojo.

We will soon find out whether Irving Berlin was right, but one thing is certain; success feels far better than the alternative.

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