Not a single shot on target. Not even a scuffed, sliced or meekly hit one. A dire performance seemingly designed to strangle the opposition back fired as a late goal made it a scant 2 points from a possible 27 on the road.

Swansea City 1 v 0 Derby County
Coca Cola Championship
Liberty Stadium, Swansea
Friday 20th November 2009, 7:45 pm

Team Line Ups:

Swansea City: Dorus De Vries, Angel Rangel, Ashley Williams, Alan Tate, Frede Bessone, Andrea Orlandi (Allen 61), Darren Pratley, Cedric Van der Gun (Butler 77), Leon Britton, Nathan Dyer, Craig Beattie (Trundle 92).

Subs: David Cornell, Stephen Dobbie, Jordi Lopez, Albert Serran.

Derby County: Stephen Bywater, Fredrik Stoor (Connolly 63), Shaun Barker, Dean Leacock, Dean Moxey, Gary Teale (McEveley 73), Robbie Savage, Bryan Hughes, Paul Green, Jake Livermore (Dickov 85), Rob Hulse.

Subs: Ross Atkins, Miles Addison, Lee Croft, Lee Hendrie.

Match Comment:

The most baffling thing to come out of the game was the Rams tactic of holding Swansea out but in turn not having any design to find a route on goal themselves.

In their win at Pride Park before the international break, although looking fragile at times, Derby drove forward in waves, purpose and looked like a much slicker unit.

For me and many others this has a lot to do with Hulse and Dickov up front as they have improved at complementing each others hard work. This would have been a welcome addition to the bluntness on display in Wales with a lone striker forced to spend much of his time defending.

One of the Rams best player in their last hit out was Stephen Pearson but he continued his injury riddled career at Derby and was ruled out with a groin complaint. Perhaps he knew what was to come as it was not just backs against the wall as backs, sides, fronts, tops and bottoms were required to hold the Swansea attack at bay.

Without a genuine chance on goal or even a non-genuine one on target, there is no way of putting a positive spin on the performance. Derby never had much else in mind except not repeating the disaster of Cardiff and at best looked to be trying to do no more than steal a point.

Some might say (as many players and manager already have) that the Rams were unlucky not to get away with a point. To me that kind of thinking seems in it self counter productive, scoring a goal would have also helped in securing a point, a couple of goals may have even resulted in securing three.

Instead Derby slipped to another confidence sapping defeat that has already incensed fans because of the way in which the team are playing. It will no doubt once again produce further loud bellowing amongst those determined to see Nigel drummed out of Derby a failure.

I do not include myself in that group and will continue to support him being given more time. Mind you, I would also support him being given some help either financially or in his back room staff. So far it seems those at the top do not plan to do either any time soon, may they prove me wrong.

If I had to make one complaint about the manager it would be the use of tactics that take all that was good about one performance and scrap them in favor of those that have continually proven ineffective and produced a unacceptable 2 away points for the season.

Supporters want to see their team play football and much of the frustration seems to stem from the fact that the strategies employed strangles any chance of that happening.

I think a fan who emailed me at RamZone after the game, summed up the feelings of many who were listening to the game:

“A truly vapid, embarrassing display from what I heard on Radio Derby commentary, with a VERY condemnatory phone call to RD from a disgusted, emotional fan emerging from the stadium.
 
I'm a 'loyal' fan but I really couldn't conceive of spending a large wad of money, booking at least a half-day off and enduring a 382-mile round trip (from Derby) to watch THAT by any stretch of my imagination.
 
It doesn't make me less of a fan to declare that I will only attend 'local' away games like WBA, Cov etc in the forseeable future because I value my leisure time too much - indeed, it signals that there's only so much I'd put up with in watching the skeleton of a team representing my club nowadays!
 
Injuries, excuses, half-witted performances, half-baked tactics, inadequate players, nil entertainment, sham 'matchday experiences', low investment - we've got all the negatives at Derby County and it seems to me it will be a bitter winter.
 
Why do we bother”?
 
Harsh comments... or overly generous? You can decide for yourself.

Whatever your opinion is, it is hard to deny many of the points raised hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head.

As is always the way in football, something’s gotta give.

The question usually is… what will it be?

Managers Post Match Comments:

Nigel Clough speaking to www.therams.co.uk :

"One thing that stood out was a lack of pace. I don't think we had any throughout the side," said Clough after the Swansea game.

We've talked about it for the last few months and we've not really got any pace in the squad at the moment.

You look at the problems Swansea's Nathan Dyer caused us.
We will be trying to bring some pace in, either on loan or permanent.

We brought James Vaughan in for that reason and he got injured. Someone with pace would be ideal but there's not too many of them around.

We'll try to get anybody we can. We are talking about one or two options at the moment and have put enquiries in to one or two clubs, so we'll wait and see".

Best of the Match Reports:

DCFC - Official Site

SCFC - Official Site

therams.co.uk

Sky Sports

Photo: Action Images

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