Could front pairing deliver precious flow of goals?

IT HAS been a struggle for both of Derby County’s senior strikers to find a real rhythm during the season so far, writes Ryan Conway.

Colin Kazim-richards went down during the 2-1 defeat to Peterborough with a torn Achilles, missing two months of action, and has since been working his way back to full fitness.

Meanwhile, Sam Baldock, who has grabbed two goals this season, against Hull City and Barnsley, has been in and out of the squad due to personnel changes and has been presented with a mixed bag of opportunities for him to feast on in the box.

Jack Stretton has filled in for the pair admirably with his hard work running the channels, decent positioning inside the box and clever runs off the shoulder. But he is still learning his craft.

The inconsistencies up front have contributed to Derby’s profligacy in front of goal. Their 13 League goals is the third-lowest tally in the Championship, behind Barnsley and Hull City.

So much of what Baldock and Kazim-richards bring goes beyond the goals (though, in Derby’s perilous position at the foot ofthe Championship, goals are required).

When both are fit, manager Wayne Rooney has options he can deploy depending on the tactical plan.

The signing of Baldock made sense. His profile is similar to that of Lee Gregory, who Derby had on loan from Stoke City from January last season, and Martyn Waghorn, who left in the summer to join Coventry City. Baldock is a willing runner of the channels and tries to stretch defences and exploit the space in behind.

Not a link-up man like Kazimrichards, Baldock can often be found sitting between the posts in the opposition’s goal waiting for a chance to drop his way. It is a position which Rooney tried to employ with Kazim-richards to mixed results but Baldock is a more natural fit for that style of play.

His poacher mentality shows up in the numbers. The striker has taken 10 shots so far, seven of those on target with an expected goals of 2.29. But the numbers show the former West Ham United man has been wasteful, missing three “big chances”, according to Opta metrics.

However, he is at least posing a threat to the opposition goal. His 26 touches inside the opponents’ penalty area is joint-second highest in the squad (Tom Lawrence leads the way with 44).

Conversely, Kazim-richards is a very different type of striker, that much is clear by the size difference between him and Baldock. Less a “fox in the box” type forward and more of a link man, Kazim-richards often seemed like the straw which stirred the drink last season and that role looked set to continue before he went down with injury.

Dropping deep, allowing for a midfielder to run into the vacated space, collecting the ball and using his underrated passing technique to try and split defences open (think about his assist for Waghorn’s goal during Derby’s 2-0 win over Huddersfield Town in February), the former Turkey international adds an extra element of creativity to the team.

The former Sheffield United forward’s numbers are, as expected, lower due to injury decimating the first half of his season.

Yet even with a limited sample size of 316 minutes – with most of those coming as he works his way back to fitness – Kazim-richards has an expected goals of 1.08. Yet he, like

Baldock, has passed up two “big chances”.

Simply put, the pair must be more clinical.

Of course, there is a third option: play the pair together.

Doing so would sacrifice one of the attacking trio behind a lone main striker but with Derby needing more goals, Baldock could play off Kazimrichards and profit from the pockets of space created by the former Feyenoord striker dropping deep.

Deploying them as a duo – which Rooney tried recently in Derby’s 2-1 defeat to Barnsley but with Baldock on the right wing – could give Derby’s wide men more to aim at in the box when in crossing positions and allow them to mix up their repertoire.

In general, the Rams are scoring goals as their numbers would suggest. Their expected goals of 14.97 as a team is just a tick over the 13 goals they have actually scored.

However, as a team, they have missed 11 “big chances”, wehich equates to the lack of cutting edge Rooney has so often bemoaned throughout his tenure.

That they have only created 12 such chances throughout the season so far, the fewest in the division, highlights the pressure players are under to finish their chances when they present themselves – they never know if they will be presented with another.

In fact, Derby are one of the most stale sides in the division. Only Peterborough (97) have created fewer chances than the Rams (116).

But there is sympathy and hope to be had.

The woodwork has been rattled seven times by a Derby player – tied fourth most in the Championship. To go with that, the Rams have shown themselves to be effective on the counter attack, as they should with comfortable midfield distributors such as Max Bird and Ravel Morrison and field-stretching speed in the shape of Festy Ebosele, Tom Lawrence and Kamil Jozwiak.

Derby have totalled 11 fast breaks, third most in the Championship.

Yet, once more, their cutting edge is often blunted when it really matters. Derby have scored only one goal from the counter-attacks they have produced.

With Kazim-richards back in the squad and Baldock’s different style of play, Rooney has a couple of options to turn to in his quest to fire Derby off the foot of the table.

The ability to mix and match is tempting, with a combo of exciting attacking midfielders playing a lively supporting cast to the strikers.

It may not be long before Rooney deploys two up top to give his team more potency as they attempt to arrest a seven-game winless streak.