HE’S SIBLEY THE BEST
Derby’s teen star shines as Rooney watches on
WAYNE RooNEY watched from the stands as 18-year- old louie Sibley marked his full league debut in style. Rooney was ruled out with a muscle injury before kick- off and will have a scan today.
But derby responded with a mixture of youth and experience to give their fading play-off hopes a much-needed boost.
the pre-match talk revolved around Rooney’s absence, but by the end Sibley was the name being spoken about.
derby boss Phillip Cocu praised Sibley’s display as the teenager fired in a spectacular first goal for the club.
Sibley opened the scoring after 29 minutes when he collected a ball from Martyn waghorn and unleashed a fierce 20-yard effort that swerved away from Rovers goalkeeper Christian walton and into the top corner.
the celebrations told their own story and Cocu said: ‘we saw Sibley’s individual quality. He scored his first goal, it’s not bad if you start your career in such a way!’
Sibley also played a part in derby’s second before the break when, at the other end of the spectrum, 31-year- old Chris Martin scored first of his two goals, the second one a late penalty.
on thursday, Sibley played alongside
Rooney to turn in a man of the match performance in the FA Cup defeat by Manchester united.
But even with Rooney ruled out against Blackburn, Sibley showed he was more than capable of having a major say in the game and he got a standing ovation from the home fans when he was subbed in the second half.
But Cocu explained why Rooney could not keep up his 100 per cent starting record for the Rams against a Blackburn side who would have moved into the top six with a victory.
Cocu said: ‘If he’d been oK, he would’ve been in the team.
‘He has a small muscle problem, we’ll assess it on Monday to find out exactly what it is.
‘we don’t expect it to be a big issue, we’re positive he’ll be available for the next game. He couldn’t train on the Saturday. It seemed like stiffness, it wasn’t good enough, we didn’t want to take the risk that he starts and then pulls a muscle and is out of the season. ‘wayne was part of the team in the preparation, half-time and after the game, but he observed from on high to see some tactical details.’ on Sibley’s improvement this season, the Rams boss added: ‘He played in a great way, and when he scores, he confirms the improvement during all the months he trained with the first team. ‘ But he still has to continue his development. He deserved to play here. He did well on thursday, sometimes an opportunity pops up and he did great.’ Martin made it two after Rovers keeper walton spilled a Graeme Shinnie shot. And Martin added his fifth goal in eight games when he scored from the spot with five minutes left. Blackburn boss tony Mowbray said: ‘ we were disappointed. we came here with an ambition to get into the top six, we believed we could and would. ‘ But we had chances to score and didn’t take them.’