Derby County Preview

[modes98]

Bentley and Cruz are carrying us in recent times. Given the results that is easy to see.

Brad is not making wonder saves, which you can't expect all the time, but a good pen save today.

Emerton looks suspect at times but is ok going forward.

Zurab seemed fine at CB.

Nelsen was slow and a liability.

Warnock made 1 awful pass straight to their player which put us in trouble and 1 bad tackle(his booking), other than that he was great.

Bentley was spot on, created everything for us.

Tugay wasn't in the game as much as i had hoped but was quite effective.

Mokoena is the biggest waste of space ever. He can't pass and can't tackle. He should have been sent off today and hughes should have taken him off straight after. He will cost us if we keep him.

MGP Just lacks the confidence to go forward. He wanted Warnock to play the LM role whilst he held at LB and also would wait for the def to be on top of him before crossing the ball. Just take a chance and cross the ball for gods sake!!!!!

Benni Much better, had a few chances and unlucky not to score. Good assist to Santa

Santa When you're hot, you're hot. Still a bit of improvement could be done on his game but damn he looks very good out there, especially with Benni.

They did enough today and closed the doors with 70mins to go. Sunderland will be a bigger test and we will need to step up accordingly. Still 3 points away from home in the premiership is nothing to be frowned upon!

[jim mk2]

Three cheers for 3 points today after a horrible month - I thought Rovers played well albeit against an awful Derby side. My only criticism is that we should have had 2 or 3 more goals from breakaways in the second half.

[AggyBlue]

Should have been more comfortable than it was. It's time we started finishing teams off or at least learning how to kill a game.

Derby fans and then their team started believing they could get something the longer the second half wore on.

With our missed chances and poor final ball, it all made for an uneasy last quarter to the match.

[RoyRover]

I'm very happy with yesterday's result. That game came a long just at the right time, when we needed to get a win. We played well, but could have scored more goals, if we had turned our possession into chances and the final ball had been better. I lost count of the amount of times in the last 15 minutes where we on the counter attack, but the final ball was crap and was either cut out or slowed the whole move down, allowing Derby to get back. We had some chances in the last 10 minutes or so, Santa Cruz's header and Bentley's shot off the post.

Overall, a very welcome 3 points and hopefully we can follow this up with another win against Sunderland which could signal the start of our customary strong second half to a season.

[thenodrog]

Gamst, again , was very poor for me today.

....... HE HAS TO GO IN JAN. Give Treacy a go in the cup, if he looks good try him out for a spell , 3/4 games.

And what if Treacy looks bad?

[LeftWinger]

Ryan Nelsen was the sole culprit for both derby goals today in my opinion, absolutely horrible defending for the first one, and lazy tackle for the second.

Talk about being made a scapegoat! He's being blamed for goals that didn't even happen now

[Tim Southampton Rover]

I'm surprised Samba didn't get blamed as well considering the amount of stick he's taken recently

[thenodrog]

I'm surprised Samba didn't get blamed as well considering the amount of stick he's taken recently

Nah....... more to do with the mis-placed pass between Ped and Mokoena 10 minutes earlier Tim.

[herbergeehh]

Betnley is the new name now?

[Atomicrover]

I'm surprised Samba didn't get blamed as well considering the amount of stick he's taken recently

By the way, given the reason for the big fella's absence, anyone know whether Mrs Samba has produced yet?

[T4E]

Talk about being made a scapegoat! He's being blamed for goals that didn't even happen now

Just to add to the dossier, SSN are doing a statistic round up for the calender year of 2007 - one of the stats shows that Nelsen is the player to have given away the most penalties in 2007, with 4. Presumably Ooijer will just pass the trophy straight to him.

[brfcshabba]

Just to add to the dossier, SSN are doing a statistic round up for the calender year of 2007 - one of the stats shows that Nelsen is the player to have given away the most penalties in 2007, with 4. Presumably Ooijer will just pass the trophy straight to him.

2 against Villa (one this season and one last season), 1 against Fulham and the other against Derby

[adopted scouser]

Gamst, again , was very poor for me today.

....... HE HAS TO GO IN JAN. Give Treacy a go

And what if Treacy looks bad?

She'll be getting roasted

[dopper69]

I'll go with a 2-1 win to Rovers.

Cruz and Pedersen to deliver the goods.

A shakey last 10 mins with Brad pulling off some great saves

That wasnt a bad guess by all accounts!

[B.R.F.C]

Decent performance from us but is has to be said our defending was all over the place once again and is something that needs addressed pronto. Ryan Nelsen does not look anything close to the player he was last year and is surely set to be dropped.

Don't get all the criticism of Ped once again...I thought he played his best game for a good while and was unlucky not to score. One small point about his play would be to whip the ball in first time rather than stopping and "standing it up."

[AlanK]

Gamst was awful.

All play broke up when he got involved.

He doesn`t know when to release the ball, his service to the front 2 was non existent and I`m sure even some of the other players were getting loathe to giving him the ball and turning away from him.

Give me 3 examples of play in the time he was on the field that would warrant his selection and salary.

[grizfoot]

My ratings for yesterdays game:

Friedel - 8 - Vital penalty save, unlucky with the goal. Apart from that had little to do.

Warnock - 7 - Steady game from Warnock, picked up another needless booking though.

Nelsen - 5 - Got pushed out of position for the first goal and gave away the penalty, not the best of games from the skipper.

Zurab - 7 - Another good game form Zurab looked reassured back in the centre rather than out on the right.

Emerton - 7 - Usual performance from Emerton never stopped running down the right-wing giving Bentley more space and options. Keeps giving away free-kick in dangerous areas though.

Pedersen - 5 - Another poor game from him unfornately, had a perfect chance to square it to McCarthy for a easy tap-in, instead went for the goal himself.

Tugay - 7 - Set counter-attacks off, good range of passing as usual.

Mokoena - 7 - Brilliant tackle to knock the ball in the path for Bentley's goal. Got stuck-in and rattled a couple of their players. Even his passing seem slightly better.

Bentley - 9 - Simply outstanding, ran the game for us seemed to be everywhere and always wanted the ball.

McCarthy - 5 - Fluffed a couple of great chance, on another day he'd have put thoose away. Needs to find his scoring boats again soon.

Santa Cruz - 7 - Followed in for the goal and always looked a threat to the Derby defence.

Overall a decent perfromance for Rovers but it should have been more comfortable than the 2-1 scoreline, roll on Sunderland at Ewood.

[Jan]

Gamst was awful.

All play broke up when he got involved.

He doesn`t know when to release the ball, his service to the front 2 was non existent and I`m sure even some of the other players were getting loathe to giving him the ball and turning away from him.

Give me 3 examples of play in the time he was on the field that would warrant his selection and salary.

I doubt you'd find them! Well, Warnock's been not giving the ball to Gamst except on the rare occasions he's in acres of space with enough room away from the byeline to make up for his dreadful first touch (ie not very often) for months. If there's a player within sprinting disctance, Warnock passes to someone- ANYONE else.

[Fife Rover]

Gamst was awful.

All play broke up when he got involved.

He doesn`t know when to release the ball, his service to the front 2 was non existent and I`m sure even some of the other players were getting loathe to giving him the ball and turning away from him.

Give me 3 examples of play in the time he was on the field that would warrant his selection and salary.

Can you tell me ANY player playing at a higher level than the English or Scottish League Div 1 level that DOES earn their salary?

[winner]

MOTM was Bentley, who was simply the driving force in everything that we did. An outstanding performance.

Nelson was shockingly bad, at fault for their goal with a comedy kick out at the ball, the man he was meant to be marking then tapped the ball in from close range. He also of course gave away a penalty. I think he needs to be dropped, the options Hughes has though may not allow this.

McCarthy again was poor. He had one excellent chance and hit it straight at the keeper.

Pedersen was slightly better, but he does need to be dropped. His recent performances do not merit him being consistently picked, and Hughes has options in this area to drop him.

Overall, we should have scored a third in the second half, against an extremely poor Derby side.

[gumboots]

I can't work out who everyone thinks our better options are on the left. When we leave out Pedersen we look unbalanced because everyone wants to come inside. We can't risk playing youngsters in the position we find ourselves in in most games at the moment. I'm sure Hughes would love to be in a position to bring on Treacy for a run out but you can't put the pressure on a lad's shoulders in important games at the moment. We need to stick with Morten because he is slowly but surely improving again until such time as we find ourselves doing well in games and can give some of the younger players a chance in a less pressurised situation. I know there are those who can't see Pedersen as ever being worth a place in the team but tell me we haven't looked slightly better of late when he's been starting and show me who else can do a job in his position.

[colin]

Just to change the general theme of blame & finger-pointing.........

I went to the game with my mate Pete. He's an ex QUEGS oik who is now a lecturer at Derby Univerity (shh Chesh) and now lives near Derby.

He hasn't been to many Rover's matches recently and this was his first game for ages.

He LOVED IT.

We also took his five years old son and introduced him to Rovers. He got all frightened and scared when Brad saved the penalty because it was "too loud." It was also "too loud" when we scored.

He dropped his hot-dog and we had to brush it off with a bit of tissue.

Despite all this I think we've just recruited another fan. Yowza!