Rams Bruised & Beaten Badly By Boys In Blue!
Friday, 10th Jan 2014 23:02 by Daniel J Sewart
The best home record in the Championship came head to head with the best away record and it was the home record that came away the runaway victor. Leicester not only proved their promotion credentials, Derby showed they still have a long way to go.
As a Rams fan you could try and take come consolation from the fact that the Foxes are by far and away the best team in the League and are likely to run away with the title this season. Unfortunately the hapless effort that Derby put in, is unlikely to be washed away by any such excuse as they looked a class below where they will need to be to even challenge for a top 6 place.
After a first 15 minutes where both teams traded blows, providing an entertaining spectacle, slowly but surely Leicester began to gain a stranglehold as the warning signs were plain for all to see.
The Foxes were beginning to tear the Rams apart in midfield and in turn the forward creativity of Dyer, Vary and Nugent who all had early chances, looked by far and away a class above anything the Rams had to offer.
Chances were becoming easier for the home team to create as a flat footed Derby began to look tired and devoid of the spark that had propelled them up the league.
When Dyer, who was giving the Rams a torrid time, missed an open goal after Grant could only palm the ball away from goal, it seemed that a goal was coming unless Derby found some ticker fast.
Unfortunately no ticker was in the Rams kit bag so the inevitable came to pass when the Foxes finally put the ball in the back of the net. He started the move himself from right-back with a run that bamboozled two Rams, threw in a one-two with Nugent for good measure and finished by firing it low, easily beating Lee Grant.
From there the Foxes blew the Rams off the park and how the home side were not ahead by 4 or 5 goals by half-time was a mystery in itself. Derby did not have a single effort on target in the first half and despite some decent play in the first 10-15 minutes, never really looked like troubling the home side.
When Leicester hit the bar twice in quick succession, first from a shot on goal by Vardy from a near impossible angle and then Liam Moore smashed the ball into the cross bar by head from a corner.
It was going to be a case of the Rams hanging on till half time and hoping that Steve McClaren might have a team talk for the ages ready to break the glass on in case of such an emergency.
The Rams hung on but lord knows how as they were totally dominated in every department and on the balance of play should have been beaten by half time.
I don’t know about other Rams fans but I was surprised McClaren did not make any changes at half time to try and inject some life into the stagnant Rams. It seemed as if they desperately needed it but then again giving them a chance to redeem themselves was worth a try.
Unfortunately there was no respite for the Rams as after seeing the Foxes miss so many sitters, the home teams second was more luck than class but in all honestly if anyone deserved a slice of luck, it was the home team. When Nugent's shot was saved only to bounce back off his legs and into the net and into goal.
McClaren decided like the rest of us the team on the park had no chance and tried to inject some life into proceedings with new loan signing Patrick Bamford and Mason Bennett coming on for Dawkins and Ward.
There was a brief flicker of hope when Bamford got straight into the thick of it by shooting low. His effort was turned away for a corner and resulted in a Buxton header being deflected in by De Laet for an own-goal.
A slight heart beat but only slight.
Any hope the Rams may gather momentum was snuffed out when Craig Forsyth had a brain snap after shepherding Vardy away from goal only to bring him down on the edge of the box with a poor sliding tackle. Nugent stepped up and converted his 8th penalty of the season.
Rams flat-lined and pronounced dead.
Forsyth’s moment of madness triggered a full collapse as Nugent made it four and heaped more embarrassment on a Derby team who had hoped to regain some pride and momentum.
Instead it was three losses in a week with 8 days of soul searching ahead as McClaren will attempt to bring his team out of a nose dive when they welcome Brighton next weekend.
RamZone will present a completed report, match reaction, stats and more tomorrow but until then - we might just retreat to lick our wounds and try desperately not to have nightmares about a week of being beaten by boys in blue!
