DON’T SACK BOOZE BOYS
Stand-in skipper pleads for his pals
DERBY stand-in skipper Curtis Davies says his team-mates who have shamed the club should not be booted out.
Tom Lawrence and Mason Bennett have been charged with drink-driving after a midweek crash on the A6 in Derbyshire which left captain Richard Keogh with a seasonending knee injury and his career on the line.
Midfielder Tom Huddlestone was then handed the armband only to lose it once manager Phillip Cocu realised that footage of Bennett being sick in a pub toilet during the squad boozing session before the crash came from his Snapchat account.
Former England midfielder Huddlestone played in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Birmingham while Lawrence and Bennett were axed, amid speculation the duo – who are due in court on October 15 – could be sacked altogether.
But Curtis believes that would be a mistake on the part of the club.
“Right now we’re going to be under a massive spotlight,” he said. “It’s about keeping the lads together. We can’t disown anyone, we need to keep everyone in and make sure everyone is doing the right things and we start building and moving on with football.
“We’ve always been a team, we’re a good unit and we make sure we stick together.
“I’m not condoning it but I have to stand by them and help them to pay back to the fans and to the community.
“As players, we need to get round them to make sure they’re doing that and they can be part of our squad, and allow the fans to get that feeling back to them.” Derby chairman Mel Morris apologised to fans before Saturday’s game.
Birmingham fans taunted their rivals by singing ‘Richard Keogh, you should have walked home’ only for Derby supporters to join in.
Blues winger Dan Crowley insisted all their focus was on the game.“We didn’t pay much attention to all that stuff – I’m
not too interested in what they were going through,” he said. On the pitch, Derby did their best to say sorry by winning for the first time since the opening day of the season, and for the first at home since May. Chris Martin gave them the lead after 86 seconds on his first Derby start for 658 days and Martyn Waghorn doubled it after the break.
Brum turned the game on its head with goals from Gary Gardner and Ivan Sunjic in the space of four second-half minutes and Lukas Jutkiewicz missed a penalty to have made it 3-2, only for Jamie Paterson to grab a late winner for the Rams.
DERBY (4-1-4-1): Roos 7; Holmes 7 (Knight 90, 5), Bielik 6, Davies 7, Malone 7; Huddlestone 7; Waghorn 8, Lowe 6, Paterson 7, Jozefzoon 7 (Bogle 72, 6); Martin 8 (Marriott 71, 6). Goals: Martin 2, Waghorn 50, Paterson 74.
BIRMINGHAM (4-4-2): Camp 7; Colin 6, Roberts 5, Dean 6, Pedersen 6; Crowley 7, Sunjic 7, G Gardner 7 (Bellingham 76, 6), Maghoma 6 (Villalba 76, 6); Jutkiewicz 7, Gimenez 6. Goals: Gardner 56, Sunjic 59.