Derby County:
Bywater(5); Stoor(7) (Livermore, 62, 6), Connolly(5), Barker(6), Moxey(4); Croft(5), Savage(7), Hughes(6) (Pearson, 68, 5), Teale(4); Dickov(6) (Davies, 68, 6), Hulse(5).
Subs: Deeney, Buxton, Hendrie, Mills
QPR:
Cerny; Ramage (Leigertwood, 60), Stewart, Gorkss, Barrowdale; Buzsaky; Faurlin, Mahon, Tarrabt (Agyemang, 76); Routledge, Simpson (Vine, 75)
Subs: Heaton, Hall, Alberti, Ainsworth
Attendance: 30135 (734 wearing Hula Hoops)
Referee: Mark Haywood (West Yorkshire)
Match Report:
Derby's American Marketing Machine moved into overdrive for the televised home match against QPR, with everyone in attendance receiving a commemorative tee shirt, courtesy of the sponsors. Perhaps it would be more appropriate in future to give a white flag or a towel to throw in, given the inexplicable second-half capitulation that was witnessed by over 30,000 dissatisfied customers.
When Old One-Eye scaled the heights of the North Stand to savour the pre-match entertainment instead of the usual pre-match Pint n Balti Pie – the kick-off being rather too close to curry time in the Cyclops household to risk the wrath of the Memsahib – the white shirts draped over all the seats made it look as though there had been an unseasonal snow shower. Two hours later, the word 'shower' was still fixed firmly in the mind.
The match had been billed as 'Turning Pride Park into a Sea of White', and coming just two days after Nick Griffin's faltering display on BBC's 'Question Time', people might have been forgiven in thinking that it was an advertisement for a BNP rally.
Of course, the analogy is a ridiculous one, because people actually still turn up for football matches at Pride Park Stadium – at least for now. Still, Mr Clough entered into the spirit of things by picking only white players in his starting XI – an unfortunate coincidence on 'Kick It Out' Day.
The match kicked off with Derby looking towards the South Stand. I hesitate to use the word 'attacking' because that infers occasionally moving play in that general direction. Rangers were quick, incisive and gave Derby a bit of a chasing during the early exchanges, and the way the ball zipped around midfield resembled a pinball machine with Gavin Mahon operating all the flippers.
A remarkable statistic regarding the opening moments – the first free kick was not awarded until the eighth minute. The conclusion one might draw from this one fact is that both sides were showing one another a degree of respect or sparring at arm's length. The truth of the matter is that, for the first seven minutes, no Derby player actually got close enough to kick any of the visitors.
The referee, Mr Haywood, had been largely unnoticed – as it should be – but arguably his only mistake of the game assisted Derby in opening the scoring. A superb first-time ball from debutant Bryan Hughes found Lee Croft in space on the right. Despite wriggling past a despairing lunge, Croft set off towards the by-line, only for the referee to pull play back for a free kick to The Rams with crowd and players howling for play to be allowed to continue.
Robbie Savage grabbed the ball and, spotting the disorganised Rangers defence in disarray, flicked it through to Leicester City's sixth-choice striker, on-loan Paul Dickov, who smashed the ball past Cerny from close range to give Derby an unexpected lead completely against the run of play. It was a goal that owed everything to the experience and quick thinking of Savage and the nous of 'Fox in the Box' Dickov.
Rangers continued where they had left off, basically passing Derby off the park, but by and large the defence were coping well. The excellent Wayne Routledge was particularly prominent, dropping a little deeper to pick up the ball and carry it at the heart of Derby's defence, and one run saw him create a great chance for Mahon, ghosting into the penalty area, only for the midfielder's header to miss the target.
Routledge's next contribution was to dither on the ball close to his own penalty area, allowing a collector's piece to take place – a Gary Teale tackle that actually made contact with something more solid than thin air. A turn, a shimmy, a perfect cross and Rob Hulse was there at the near post to bury the ball past Cerny – only the QPR keeper hadn't read the script. Instead, a flying save kept the deficit to a single goal.
Alejando Faurlin came within inches of giving the visitors a deserved equaliser with a free kick which beat Bywater all ends up only to find the side netting, much to the amusement of the South East Corner who mocked the Rangers fans' misplaced celebrations, but when Damion Stewart's premature attempts to swap shirts with Dickov gave The Rams a free kick 22 yards out, Robbie Savage curled an exquisite shot into the top corner, barely a commemorative tee-shirt's thickness inside the post to double the home side's lead.
Rangers could have been forgiven for thinking that is was just not going to be their night. They had by no means been outplayed, yet were on the wrong end of a 2-0 scoreline with still ten minutes to go before half time.
Floundering in the Sea of White, their choice was simple – sink or swim – and it was Paul Connolly who unwittingly blew up their water wings by fouling Adel Taarabt just outside the box. The Moroccan international picked himself up and popped a delightful free kick just inside Bywater's left hand post to reduce the arrears.
Derby should have increased their lead before half time, and if that had happened, we might have been spared the embarrassment – disgrace even – of what was to follow.
A largely subdued Hulse should have done better with his header than finding the face of Doris Mopp of Chaddesden in her seat in Row Q when he met Lee Croft's only decent cross of the match, and when Gary Teale hit the unfortunate woman again with the goal at his mercy, Old One-Eye's half time ciggie should have been one of satisfaction, not nervous trepidation.
The Rams started the second half on the front foot with Dickov bursting into the Rangers box, but his errant centre merely launched the visitors forward. A flat-footed Dean Moxey failed to clear Akos Buzsaky's cross, Routledge cushioned the ball back towards the six-yard box and Gavin Mahon turned the ball past a helpless Stephen Bywater.
It was no more than Rangers – and Derby – deserved.
The visitors were now rampant with Derby's midfield in danger of being completely overrun. The statuesque wide players offered little, Savage chased shadows and Hughes found himself unable to find any time on the ball.
The pre-match Can-Can dancers showed far more co-ordinated movement as Rangers just passed the ball through and around Derby's sorry bunch, and The Rams defence came under increasing pressure.
It would be easy to describe QPR's third goal as the one that killed this game as a contest, but that would be doing them a disservice. Derby had effectively been finished as a force as soon as they conceded the first – the others were just layers of icing of varying thickness on the top of the cake.
When Connolly, Barker and Moxey somehow contrived to be outnumbered by the solitary Jay Simpson who stroked the ball past Bywater, the disgruntled Rams fans gave voice to their feelings in no uncertain terms.
The hitherto impressive Fredrik Stoor went down with a facial injury and his replacement, Jake Livermore, filled in at right back – frankly, it was a baffling decision to include unfit Buxton at all. Paul Connolly floundered out of his depth at centre half and a natural (but unusable) centre half in Jake Buxton contracted bum splinters on the bench.
Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity when Mr Clough said “Get your track suit off, Jake”, or perhaps it is indicative of the confusion that seems to inhabit the corridors of Pride Park from top to bottom at present.
Stoor has been the one shining light in Derby's shambolic defence on the few occasions he has made it off the treatment table and onto the pitch. The Swede has been largely faultless – the problem seems to lie with some of the other vegetables in the side - the leeky defence, midfield players not earning their celery and strikers who just carrot hit the target.
Derby threatened an equaliser momentarily after Steve Davies and Stephen Pearson replaced Dickov and Hughes, but by and large it was a case of 'too little, too late'. As the first tee shirts of winter fluttered pitch-side, Hulse fired miles over from ten yards.
Moxey compounded an already miserable display by bundling over Wayne Routledge in the box, Akos Buzsaky fired home the spot-kick and the shower of tee-shirts became a blizzard with drifting in the by now largely unpopulated wilderness that is the South East Corner.
The game ended amidst a chorus of boos, which Old One-Eye thought was a very good piece of advice and so headed straight for the pub. An emergency phone call home persuaded the Memsahib that the traffic around Pride Park, the whole of Derby – in fact, the entire East Midlands – was completely gridlocked, and it would be best to put the curry on hold for a while. The last thing anyone would want to see would be rings around the plate – they look too much like hoops.
Old One-Eye's Man of the Match: Gavin Mahon (QPR)