The Rams came away without reward from their encounter with a lacklustre but resolute Everton on Sunday.

Although disappointed in defeat, there was encouragement for manager Paul Jewell that performances were improving.

Slack midfield marking and slipshod defending, both Derby trademarks, were characteristic lapses that let in Leon Osman to score after 58 minutes of stubborn resistance as Everton struggled to put their game together. At the other end, the inability of Derby players to deliver the killer ball or convert what few chances that came their way reflected the shortcomings of a barren season.

The Rams needed a point per game from their last five games of 2007-08 to reach 16 points - that’s three times the rate at which they’ve picked up points all season - to avoid the biggest wooden spoon of all, the label of worst Premier League team on record.

Paul Jewell altered his view on the points’ quest a little by saying that the 15 points’ total wasn’t that important, stating that next season was more vital to build a successful forward looking club reflecting his ideas. True enough - but having said he was desperate to give the fans something this season and avoiding THAT wooden spoon would mean an awful lot to Derby County supporters.

That softening of immediate ambition will be a tad disappointing to supporters who after all, live with the club permanently not for a year or two - and hate the long term diminution and derogation attached to the dreadful, unwanted on-field records that the Rams are currently making their own.

Jewell is busy pursuing various leads for players and says he will also take advantage of the more generous loan quotient permitted in the Championship. Unlike the Premier League, teams the second tier can bring in numerous loans throughout the season. He has been talking to Premier League managers asking for first refusal on possible loanees and wants young players of quality as well as mature and experienced heads to embellish his squad. A Leon Osman or two wouldn’t go amiss!

The manager expected Alan Stubbs to be fit for the visit of Aston Villa on Saturday, though Mile Sterjovski was ruled out with a muscle pull and other players had knocks and bruises. Stubbs has busied himself sending ‘personal’ messages to fans appealing to them to renew their season tickets, Sterjovski helped out at the ticket office. Surprisingly, the club claimed it was set to break last season’s ‘early bird’ sales of 18,135 season tickets by the deadline of midnight on Saturday 12th April.

If Derby County do maintain or beat the 24,000 sales of last season it will be a huge demonstration of fan loyalty at Pride Park Stadium and with that, there will be great expectation from large crowds.

Arsenal went out of European contention in that breathless clash with Liverpool at Anfield but the Rams’ home game against the Gunners - originally scheduled for Saturday 26th April - has still been shifted to Monday 28th April with an 8.00 pm kick-off, for screening on Setanta. Bye bye, Saturday afternoons…

Eddie Lewis, one of the few remaining Billy Davies signings who had recently put in steady performances for Derby, has said he would like to stop and help the Rams next season. Lewis has his detractors though makes a contribution as a genuinely left-sided player. My view however is that Derby should look for younger and better if they want to improve.

There are suggestions that Hossam Ghaly will wait for impending Premier League offers before considering whether to join Derby County permanently. Nice for him; I’m not sure that Jewell needs to wait around for players that see Derby as a 2nd or 3rd choice in the summertime player agent’s bun fight.

Another Billy Davies/Preston North End link was severed this week as Rams’ Academy Manager Kevin Thelwell departed ‘by mutual consent’ and is set to join Wolverhampton Wanderers. He is to be replaced with Everton’s highly regarded head of youth recruitment, Phil Cannon, 50, who has been with the Toffees since 2001.

The club seem serious about getting the best from their excellent Academy resources. Adam Pearson declared that the change was part of a major restructuring of the Rams’ Academy and of the football staff as a whole at Derby County. Derby have now installed full-time scouts in Spain, Portugal, Australia and Asia to widen the net in their search for players at all levels.

Derby have rethought their pre-season schedule and cancelled a proposed trip to the USA and the Detroit home area of owners GSE - but manager Paul Jewell is now arranging an early July training trip to Holland instead. He says that this is closer to home and will provide facilities matching his requirements for preparing a football team properly for an important season.

The time zone and climate in Holland will more closely align with Derby’s needs. Derby are also in talks to form links with Dutch side FC Utrecht.

So far, the Rams have scheduled four domestic pre-season friendlies: Burton Albion (A) July 16th; Rotherham United (A) July 19th; Oldham Athletic (A) July 23rd; Lincoln City (A) July 26th. They will also play at Matlock Town on July 30th in a fund-raising game to help the Gladiators finance a new stand.

The Aston Villa home game represented Derby’s last chance to give their fans a Saturday home win this season. If they flunked that chance, they have only the West Ham and Blackburn away games to win at all on a Saturday throughout the entire 2007-08 campaign. They flunked it against Villa by more than a country mile, losing 0-6. There were comic goals and amateur play, as Villa passed Derby off the park.

It was the match at which the majority of Derby County fans finally snapped and lost patience with watching the charlatans masquerading as footballers in their club’s shirts. Derby characteristically folded like a pack of cards at the first sign of adversity. Derby had a bright enough start, matching Villa for spirit and energy though not endangering Villa’s goal. Right: the next section of RW carries a Rant Warning.

I query the competence of the officials and can’t understand why there weren’t hostile complaints from Rams players as Carroll was fouled for the first goal, or when Agbonlahor - offside and obstructing the goalie for Villa’s immediate second goal - clearly gained an unfair advantage. Did the Rams care? No. Heads went down, a lack of passion was already evident. Fans sensed Villa would win as they pleased.

Derby fans yet again had to endure another embarrassing annihilation. The collapse and disarray apparent was total and final - an utter rout plumbing the depths of the worst defeats in the club’s entire history.

The manner of the defeat added insult to injury and piled ignominy upon indignity. It was alarming, disgraceful, and unacceptable; all the usual exasperated words rolled out at the manager’s latest press post-mortem. From top to bottom, the entire football staff of the club is culpable on such wretched days - as are a few other people of course who have jumped ship and disappeared up their own backsides.

It’s wretched to watch and disgusting value for money. Why can’t the team sustain the requisite energy levels to match opponents for more than 20 minutes? Why don’t the players have the mental strength and determination to put aside a setback and redouble their efforts? Why are they still so undisciplined and disorganised in teamwork, ball control, passing, and general awareness? Derby County are just appalling.

Jewell has also shipped out an entire team on loan and so condemned himself to field unfit players out of position. He has left himself with nothing to shuffle! A change usually has impact at a club and it’s unusual for a new manager to make so little difference to results; Jewell’s gone 20 games without a win.

Fans are beginning to question whether the Rams revival in the Championship will be as miraculous and exciting as fellows like Mr Glick repeatedly assert. It’s a schizophrenic club - high on ideas, potential, support and resources yet seemingly barren and at one of their all-time lows where it actually counts, on the field.

No wonder fans’ respect for modern players is rapidly evaporating. There were plenty of emotional, condemnatory calls to Radio Derby after the game, fans wanting to vent their spleen at the sheer inadequacy of this current Rams’ team.

Some of the callers hit the nail squarely on the head when they plainly disowned the current squad. “I don’t go to watch those players, I go to watch the club, to support the badge,” said one fan; another articulated what I and others felt when he said that in the second half, the crowd had effectively shunned the inadequate efforts of the forlorn Derby players by making their own entertainment.

There were ironic ‘Ole’s!’ when a Derby player managed to touch, win or even pass the ball; there was a loud, lasting and spontaneous chant of “We are Derby, We are Derby, Super Rams” to defiantly assert OUR identity and another song crooning “Let’s pretend we scored a goal”. A Mexican wave or three followed, and a general atmosphere of ridicule and self-parody pervaded the final 30 minutes. Derby deserved it.

Looking for this week’s song title? Well, of course Camden’s finest, Madness, had a hit entitled ‘Embarrassment’ - and we are truly embarrassing. If manager Jewell was still observing some players to see if he wanted to retain them, he can look away now and get shot of them - they are of no use to Derby County FC.

The players had a stark message from fans; whether they’ll heed it or not is arguable - we don’t enjoy watching you; we have to amuse ourselves because it’s painful, even laughable to witness such rubbish. It hurts fans to pay to watch garbage and to contemplate the rich rewards the club gives players. All fans hear is that the staff and players can’t wait for this season to finish. Many fans can’t wait for most of these players to leave.

Manager, board and players: be assured that the fans' relatively light-hearted dismissal of the players’ enfeebled efforts against Villa will not be repeated in the cold light of day of the Championship.

The Matchday Ram Magazine actually carried a token ‘Player of the Year’ voting form (with no list of candidates) - though I’m sure Paul Jewell said a few weeks back that there would be no such award this season. What’s changed? Was he overruled? Why? I cannot see merit in sustaining the award in the club’s worst-ever season - or am I the only fan that regards a PoTY in 2007-08 as a sick joke?

CEO Tom Glick had an emphatic answer from supporters this week after conducting his sugary seduction in the club’s PR assault upon season ticket holders, as the early renewal deadline arrived. Derby fans taking up their seats in yet another 33,000 sell-out crowd had already allegedly delivered some 19,000 season ticket sales to hitch onto his journey (conflicting reports citing much lower figures keep surfacing though when renewers themselves ask DCFC staff how it’s going at the ticket office).

Supporters by and large are apparently staying with it to see the club through; at present, they’re living only on their hope.

Rant over. If you disagree, say why - don’t just chuck insults. I try and report factually about what’s going on around DCFC but also give my opinions on it all. Fans have been comprehensively shafted this season, DCFC themselves made the Premier League a no-go area and what is being witnessed is unacceptable - something that all the cheesy PR smiles and promising spin cannot repair at the moment.

It’s West Ham away next week, 5-0 victors at Pride Park, before the visit of Arsenal (who took five goals off Derby without reply at the Emirates Stadium in October) The Derby’s stars will strut their stuff in front of Setanta customers. Perhaps viewers will expect some more goal-fests, at our expense.

Last year, RamsWeek 15 was of course bubbling with anticipation and optimism in the expectation of promotion.

A somewhat fiery encounter with Ipswich Town at Portman Road saw the Rams go down 2-1 also having goalkeeper Stephen Bywater sent off after a clash with Alex Bruce. Rams manager Billy Davies was ordered from the touchline, too.

Matt Oakley put the Rams ahead but Jeffers levelled and a penalty sealed it for Ipswich near the end. Defeat left the Rams in 2nd place, a point clear of Birmingham as Sunderland charged away 4 points clear.

It did seem to the Rams that there was a conspiracy to hinder Derby’s promotion bid as they had suffered controversial bans on Steve Howard, Darren Moore and now Stephen Bywater in rapid succession! Referees had it in for Billy Davies - and he was deprived of key players at a crucial time of the season.

Photo: Action Images

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