Home win at last for Rams
ROO’S MEN ARE UNBEATEN IN SIX,
WHERE has that performance been all season?
Derby County produced their best display of the campaign to beat Swansea City 2-0 last night.
This was only the Rams’ third victory in the League in 19 attempts and their first at Pride Park Stadium in the Championship since June.
To continue the theme of firsts, Derby finally scored more than one goal in a match this season.
They are unbeaten in six under interim boss Wayne Rooney, who is staking a strong claim to be appointed the next permanent manager once the proposed takeover is completed.
Colin Kazim-Richards gave Rooney’s team an early lead and Kamil Jozwiak made it two with an emphatic finish before half-time.
It was also a fourth consecutive clean sheet and while the Rams remain in the bottom three, they do so on goal difference having drawn level on 16 points with rivals Nottingham Forest, who are fourth bottom.
Derby were not as dominant in the second half as they had been in the first but they showed another side of the game in the way they managed the second 45 minutes, remaining strong and disciplined in their shape.
There were two changes to the Derby team.
Welsh international Tom Lawrence missed out with the ankle injury he suffered in Saturday’s goalless draw against Stoke City, while midfielder Max Bird dropped to the bench. In came Martyn Waghorn and Graeme Shinnie, who sat out the Stoke game as he served a onematch suspension for reaching five yellow cards in the League.
Jordon Ibe, who played 45 minutes for the under-23s on Monday night, was not in the squad.
Swansea came into the game having lost only one of their last seven and boosted by their victory over rivals Cardiff City in the South Wales derby at the weekend but it was the Rams who made a fast start.
They went ahead after only four minutes. Shinnie delivered a free kick into the box, Lee Buchanan knocked it down and Kazim-Richards reacted quickest to stab the ball past Freddie Woodman from close range.
It was only Derby’s ninth League goal of the campaign and a striker’s goal as Kazim-Richards was in the right place to score.
Confidence flowed through the players and they pushed Swansea back.
Derby were a threat from set plays and Jason Knight sent a shot from 20 yards thudding against Woodman’s right-hand post, the keeper getting a hand to the ball as it flashed past him.
Shinnie and Knight, tenacious and hungry for work, set the tempo for Derby, who controlled every area of the game in the opening 30 minutes while Swansea offered next to nothing going forward.
The Rams’ dominance was rewarded when they doubled their lead after 37 minutes – and what a strike from Jozwiak.
The Polish international latched onto a lay-off by Waghorn and ham
mered a rising left-foot shot from just inside the area past a helpless Woodman. A memorable first goal for the club for the summer signing from Lech Poznan.
It was all Derby and they were inches away from a third goal when Kazim-Richards sent a header crashing against the bar. The whistle blew for half-time to bring the Rams’ most impressive 45 minutes of the season to a close.
A reaction from Swansea in the second half was expected because they had been second best by some distance in the first. Steve Cooper made three changes at the break and there was more urgency from the visitors.
The competitive edge to the game went up a few notches, challenges were fiercely contested and Derby stood firm.
There were precious few chances for either side after the break but the three points was thoroughly deserved.