So the 2011-2012 season is over and what a season it has been, the rams got of to a quick start by beating Birmingham 2-1 and then winning the next three games in a row ( Watford,Blackpool and Doncaster) many people started to believe that this could be Derby County's year and get a return to the golden league, at the end of August the rams collected 12 points out of a possible 15, this was brilliant compared to last seasons statistic where Derby on collected 4 points out of a possible 12. Derby were very busy in the transfer window buying 10 fresh faces, the likes of former England U21 keeper Frank Fielding and former Sheffield United and Aston Villa drop out Jamie Ward, the eight other players were (Theo Robinson,Craig Bryson, Jason Shackell, Nathan Tyson, Chris Maguire, Adam Legzdins, Kevin Kilbane (Loan) and Chris Riggot) But Derby also tried to reduce their wage bill and got rid off the highest earner Robbie savage, Luke Varney was sold to Portsmouth, whilst youngsters Gregg Mills, Arnaud Mendy, and Ben Pringle were shown the door. Ryan Connolly, Aaron Cole, James Severn, Ross Atkins and Miles Addison were all shipped out the get some game time. Most Derby County fans were happy with the signings that were made in the August transfer window, but some fans still wanted that proven goal scorer. In my opinion at the time I wasn't sure if the strikers we signed were good enough for the job, this is because if you look at the strikers we signed and look at their goal scoring records they didn't really shine, before Nathan Tyson came to Derby, he didn't really have an impact at Nottingham Forest and only scored 33 goals at his time there, Theo Robinson was on loan at Derby County in the 2010-2011 season he scored 2 goals and when Derby signed him on a permanent deal fans were unsure if he would make a good impact, another loanee Jamie Ward in the 2010-2011 season go into the Derby fans good books, scoring 5 in 13 but however his trickiness down the wing and pace was what Derby were looking for after Kris Commons was sold to Celtic.
September was a good month for Derby collecting 7 out of 12 possible points, the highlight in that month was when the rams beat their fierce rivals Nottingham Forest 2-1, Derby who had 10 men for 89 minutes of the game managed to beat Forest. Goals from Jamie Ward (who picked up the goal of the season award for his goal) and Jeff Hendrick was enough to see them off, this added more pressure to Nottingham Forest manager Steve McLaren, who was later sacked in that month, Tomasz Cywka who was in the starting line up against Nottingham Forest was taken off early in the match as Fielding was sent off, so Derby replaced him with Adam Legzdins, Cywka who had fallen out with Clough during last seasons game with Portsmouth was certain to start against Millwall but was selected on the bench, he later came on in the match as Derby were already leading 3-0, after September Derby were sitting in 2nd and there were even more talks about if Derby can make it back into the big time, October was going to be the first month were the fans could see if the rams were fit enough to make the next set up.
October was a difficult month for the rams picking up only 5 points from a possible 15, the first match of that month was against there other East Midlands rivals Leicester, Derby don't seem to do well at the King Power Stadium having never won there before, the rams got thrashed 4-0 and the talks of promotion seemed to disappear a bit, the next game seemed even tougher as the Rams faced Southampton against a sell out crowd (33,010) Derby started the better side scoring straight away Theo Robinson the goal scorer, people started to wonder weather Derby were going to trash them, but Southampton picked up the pace and equalised, Southampton bossed the game with a possession stat of 40-60%, Rickie Lambert caught the attention of many people including Nigel Clough who said Lambert had a great game. At the end of October the rams only won one game with was against Portsmouth beating them 3-1, they also drew 2 (Southampton and Reading) and lost to Leicester and Middlesbrough, the highlight of this month was seeing Mason Bennett starting against Middlesbrough , the rams were having an injury crisis upfront, with Steve Davies who fractured his skull witch saw him miss the next 4 months, Bennett was lively against Middlesbrough and didn't look like a 15 year old on the pitch, he was unlucky to score, hitting the cross bar was the closest he got to scoring on his debut. After a mixed October Derby were sitting in 5th in the play off zone.
November was a month to forget losing every single game, Derby got November under way with a tricky game against Cardiff who at the time were sitting below Derby in the table (9th), Cardiff dominated the whole match and came out 3-0 winners, Mason Bennett again featured in the game coming on as a sub, Rams fans weren't happy and wanted the Americans to dip into their pocket and sign a striker on loan, Clough and his back room staff went to different Reserve games to sign a striker, Derby managed to buy a striker just before they hit the sky cameras against West Ham, Tamas Priskin the new signing was straight into the squad, after picking the ball up from Jamie Wards pass he managed to side foot to ball into the corner of the net, the fans couldn't believe it and though Priskin was going to be a great signing, but however the rams lost 3-1. Derby faced a tricky game against newly promoted Brighton without a win in 4 the fans started to think if Derby would do the same thing as they did last season and slip down the league, Derby lost to Brighton 1-0 and hadn't won a home game in 3, from sitting 5th at the end of October, they were now 16th, could the worrying form continue?
December was a much better month for Derby, winning 3 out of their 5 games, the first game of December saw them in front of the sky cameras against Crystal Palace, Palace took the lead with Martin scoring, could this run of losing continue? No, Derby managed to get a goal back thanks to Palace defender McCarthy, Clough had said before the game he hoped Derby got more luck in front of goal, and that is exactly what happened in the match against Palace, the next home game saw Derby face Bristol City, Derby came into the game sitting 14th in the league, whilst Bristol City were all the way down in 21st, Bristol City scored first in the game and there wasn't much hope of Derby getting back into the game, but however Bryson and youngster Callum Ball helped Derby to their first win since 29th October. Looking at the next 3 games (Ipswich, West Ham and Leeds) things weren't looking very bright, the fans got on the boards back and some weren't happy with the manager Clough, but 2 out of 3 wins saw Derby climb up to 11th, the victory's were against Leeds which was in front of another sell out crowd and West Ham, many people didn't expect Derby to beat the Hammers but they were 2-0 up in the first 10 minutes, West Ham had a lot of injuries coming into the game and had to field a weakened side ,when they were down 2-0 things weren't looking good for their fans and players. So after winning 3 games in December and collecting 10 points out of 15 were Derby getting back to winning ways?
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