FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.36: DERBY AWAY

DERBY COUNTY 0 OXFORD UNITED 0

I’d formed a view of where we’re at a couple of weeks before the Burnley game and after our visit to Turf Moor that didn’t change nor has it done after this stalemate.

Obviously we’re in a much better place than when Gary Rowett took over. He’s done a really good job in getting us out of and away from the bottom three. But I think we’re far from being safe. A team that isn’t scoring goals nor looking like scoring many goals will always be vulnerable. You can’t keep relying on your defence for points. What a contribution that defence is currently making though.

We’ve only let in two in the last four games. Trouble is that in those games we’ve only got one ourselves and of the twelve points available we’ve picked up just three.

Our leading league goal scorers are Mark Harris and Greg Leigh jointly on five. That’s a very low figure. Next come Ciaron Brown, Ruben Rodrigues and the now departed Dane Scarlett on four. Leigh and Brown are of course defenders. Without their contribution where would we be?

We didn’t address this striker/goal scoring issue in the January transfer window, but that was probably never going to happen. There are not 15-20 goal a season Championship level forwards out there to be had, let alone to be had by a club our size when compared to our league rivals.

Many teams are in the same boat. Derby’s leading scorer is Jerry Yates on seven. Next comes Ebou Adams with four. Plymouth have six joint leading scorers on three. Yes, just three. Luton have Carlton Morris with seven and Hull have Joao Coelho with five.

Cardiff, Stoke, Pompey and Cardiff all have leading scorers with a few more to their name. Respectively they’re Callum Robinson (11), Tom Cannon (9), Callum Lang (10) and Liam Cullen (9).

Of the clubs in the bottom half of the table six have a worse average goals scored per game than we do. Stoke (0.90), Luton (0.97), Millwall & Hull (1.00), and Derby & Swansea (1.03). We’re at 1.06.

Time and time again we all say that Mark Harris puts a shift in but that he is not Championship standard. He’s scored once since the end of August and has had a shed load of game time. He doesn’t win anything in the air when we have to by necessity knock it long down the middle or provide any hold up play of note. I don’t see him making many runs to find space quickly when we have patient possession or when we’ve nicked the ball and have an opportunity to get at the opposition quickly. This may all be because the poor bloke is absolutely worn out.

In 22/23 Tom Bradshaw scored 17 league goals but has not been prolific since then. Last season he only netted four times and he’s got just one this campaign for Millwall. I think he was brought in with the aim of sharing the workload with Harris with the hope his finishing would be a little better but we’re back to square one now that he’s out for a while having got injured in training.

So who else does that leave? Ole Romeny. I’m struggling to work out the thinking behind this transfer. He’s another whose goal scoring record isn’t that impressive. He is though our record signing although we don’t actually know the details. More of a winger than a centre-forward but it’s not wide men we’re short of and now we’ve got Stan Mills back too. Gary Rowett is not picking Romeny. Something doesn’t feel right to me. Is Romeny not doing it in training? Who decided he would be a good value for money signing?

Big confession here – when Mills came on I made the assumption it was Romeny. By that stage of the game I’d become as tense as could be hoping that we wouldn’t make one cock up and concede so we at least came away with a point. No way could I see us scoring. I’d become a bit numb to it all. I had thought that this wasn’t quite how I’d pictured Romeny looking but then thought well I’ve seen so little of him how would I know what he looked like? I didn’t bother to take note of the shirt number and also thought whoever it was looked a fair bit more solid than the Mills I remembered from last season. Can’t blame this on the ale – as driver for the evening I only had three halves of not very strong beer.

Not the first time I’ve done this though and I know others have too. I’ve even had conversations with people who have said player x had a bad game when they have not even played.

Anyway, I think from an OUFC perspective the game can be split into two. Before and after the 65 minute mark when Rodrigues and Mills replaced Alex Matos and Przemyslaw Placheta.

Matos had the central role in the three behind Harris. He’s a battler and gets stuck in but is not creative. RR on the other hand is creative. PP had struggled and was getting no change out of the Derby defence. At times it just looked like he was running into trouble and not releasing the ball but to be fair to him he had very few options available to him and little support. We were putting next to nothing together in the opposition’s half let alone the final third. Neither did he seem to be giving a great deal of defensive help to Peter Kioso. Mills looked much more threatening and we actually started to play some football as Derby ran out of ideas and towards the end of the game we looked the more likely team to score.

Truthfully though this deserved a 0-0 score-line and it wasn’t one of those that could be categorised as goalless but entertaining.

We only had 42% possession so not surprisingly Derby made more passes than we did, 480 to our 359, and were marginally more accurate in doing so. 81% to 77%. There was little difference in successful passes in the final third: 49 – 45. We only managed one shot on target from six attempts. That’s a damning statistic when up against a team as poor as Derby. They had four on target from 14 efforts.

Another telling stat was that we were dispossessed 12 times, that’s a high figure. What does it indicate? Lack of help when in possession? Poor ability? Greed? But I wouldn’t want talented players to be discouraged from taking on opponents. That’s Siriki Dembele’s strength. The first time we attacked through the centre was when the magnificent Ciaron Brown fed Dembele who turned and hit an excellent shot which Jacob Widell Zetterstrom had to tip over the bar. Unfortunately there was little of this type of play.

Defenders obviously don’t relish playing against someone with such good dribbling skills. When he gets going he’s entertaining, but for him to be able to properly get going he needs the protection of referees.  Stephen Martin was the man with the whistle on this occasion and his performance was one that very much deserves questioning. When Dembele had the ball just outside the box a defender swiped at both of his ankles then got the ball. Martin, who was stood nearby, indicated that it was okay because the Derby player had got the ball. Yes, eventually after committing a foul. And what’s with shaking a Derby player’s hand during the game? Not acceptable.   

Before we became much better towards the end of the contest Jamie Cumming clawed away a Lars-Jorgen Salvesen header from a corner and in doing so did really well to keep the ball away from Yates who was eye-balling him. Our no.1 is very much part of what we’re achieving at the back.

When we got on top we only came really close to scoring once. That was when Greg Leigh hammered a shot goalwards, but off target after a very good passing move. If Harris could have got a touch on it we would be two points better off now than we are.

By the end Derby had run out of ideas and we weren’t good enough to get the win.

Although I’d like us to be much more effective in the final third I came away quite satisfied with the point and happy with the way the defence played. This was another point towards safety and the Championship results on Wednesday were very kind: Stoke, Hull, Luton and Swansea all losing.

There’s still a long way to go but we’re now nine points above the bottom three. I wouldn’t like to say which three teams will fail to survive. It was never a given that it would be Plymouth (although it would have been if Rooney had not been sacked) and they’re not even bottom anymore. That’s Luton’s position at the moment. Argyle go to Kenilworth Road next Wednesday.

Portsmouth visit us this weekend for another of those annoying 12:30 kick-offs which are becoming the norm. Pompey, who are five points behind us, are well capable of coming here and winning. They beat Cardiff, another side below us, last game. Before that by all accounts they played very well in losing 2-1 at Sheffield United and drew 0-0 with Burnley.

We though are well capable of keeping a clean sheet. The big question is can we score? That will likely decide how many points we get. It’s away we can’t find the back of the net, we usually do so in OX4. Grounds for optimism then.

One of the joys of away games is having a drink in pubs frequented by home support and having a chat with like-minded fans who are just the same as us except have deep loyalty to a different club.

Back in the day “home fans only” was a sensible stance to hopefully avoid trouble but the footballing world has largely moved on since then. I like pubs that display an “away fans welcome” message. If we had a good real ale boozer near our current home ground I wouldn’t want visitors to be kept out.

I got parked up in Canal Street less than a mile from Pride Park. Payment was required for the first half hour, although no-one else seemed to have bothered getting a ticket from the machine, with it being free from 18:00 onwards. It took less than a minute to walk to the Alexandra Hotel. We’ve been in there before. No restrictions. Great choice of beer. Proper pub populated by older Derby fans. A few seconds walk away is the Brunswick. Another fantastic pub. When I went in there in 2022 the beer was perfect although the landlord had not wanted us in there because as away fans he didn’t want us to fill up the pub and keep his regular home fans out, even though it was only 11 o’clock in the morning. He eventually relented after we promised to move on quickly. This time the “home fans only” notice was still up. Only the back door was open and people entering were being checked. Sod ‘em if they didn’t want the custom of the three of us.

We next tried the Victoria Inn. A new one for us. On the door “home fans only”. Given how close to the station it was I can kind of see that. Don’t want the young boisterous types who’ve just got off the train getting in there perhaps. There was no hint of being stopped and looking through the door it was far from packed so in we went. Not a problem whatsoever. The beer was decent enough but not as good as in the Alexandra so we went back there before following those heading to the ground.   

Having my ticket marked with a marker pen as I first made my way to my allocated rail seat/standing position was a new one.