Three and too easy for Boro but Rams stay on barren run
DERBY County’s hugely disappointing season suffered another damaging blow as they crashed to a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Middlesbrough.
The Rams have now lost their last four matches without scoring a goal – it is 437 minutes since they found the net, more than seven hours of football.
They are on a nine-game winless run and it is little wonder that they are propping up the Championship.
There were encouraging signs in Saturday’s defeat by Bristol City but those signs drifted away into a cold night on Teesside.
Derby’s newly-appointed advisor to the board and technical director, Steve Mcclaren, the former Middlesbrough boss, watched on from the stand as goals from Britt Assombalonga, a Matt Clarke own goal and Marvin Johnson gave Boro a com
fortable win.
And this was against a Boro side that had previously struggled to score goals themselves this season. They scored three and could easily have had five.
Derby made one change to the team. Polish winger Kamil Jozwiak, who missed the defeat by Bristol City due to injury, returned to the starting 11.
Jozwiak replaced Duane Holmes, who dropped to the bench, where 19-year-old striker Jack Stretton – leading scorer for the under-23s – was among the substitutes.
Player-coach Wayne Rooney, part of a four-man team in charge of firstteam matters, was in defiant mood going into the game. “We will get
better. We will get out of the situation we’re in,” he said.
Boro boss Neil Warnock also believes Derby have a good enough squad to climb out of trouble.
“It’s a difficult league but they’ve got such a good squad and they haven’t got to get too many wins to be mid-table at this time of the season. I’d expect them to be more than comfortable when the season ends,” Warnock said ahead of the game.
Jozwiak started on the left for Derby, Tom Lawrence on the right, and the Rams began brightly. Rooney saw an effort blocked and Max Bird curled a shot from distance narrowly wide. The Rams worked
their way into promising positions but that final pass, cross, finish was again missing.
Assombalonga had already forced a smart save from Rams keeper David Marshall in the opening minutes and it was the Boro striker who put the home side ahead after 33 minutes.
Lawrence made a poor decision on the ball inside his own half when he could have sparked a counterattack, lost possession and Derby never recovered. Jonny Howson put the ball into the box, it skimmed off the head of Andre Wisdom and George Saville headed back across goal for Assombalonga to stab home at the back post.
Wisdom, Lee Buchanan and Clarke could all have defended better on the goal and the breakthrough gave Middlesbrough a lift.
Assombalonga went close to a second with a low shot across Marshall and then curled a free kick a foot wide. Derby had been secondbest in the half.
One down to the team with the best defence in the division is not where Derby needed to be and a significant improvement was needed in the second half.
Derby made a change at the break, Louie Sibley replaced Martyn Waghorn and Rooney went up front. Jozwiak and Lawrence switched wings and Sibley was immediately in the action.
Played in by Bird, Sibley whipped a shot wide when he should have hit the target.
Duncan Watmore drilled a shot wide for Boro, while Derby picked up yellow cards for Lawrence and Nathan Byrne – and goalkeeper coach Shay Given, presumably for speaking out of turn in the technical area.
Sibley immediately offered more movement and menace than seen from Derby in the first half. He linked with Rooney and smashed in a shot from 20 yards that Marcus Bettinelli pushed out. Lawrence was quick to the loose ball but Bettinelli saved again.
Better from Derby, but they fell two down after 71 minutes.
Marshall made an outstanding save from point-blank range to deny Marcus Tavernier but Derby failed to regroup. Byrne was not strong enough in the challenge and then allowed Johnson in behind him and his low centre was diverted into his own net by Rams defender Clarke.
Byrne saw his shot deflected wide but the home went three up as Johnson found it all too easy to carry the ball forward and curl it from 20 yards beyond Marshall and into the top corner.
Marshall prevented further damage when he plunged to his right to push away an effort from Djed Spence but the damage had already been done.