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David May returned to the side at the expense of Graham Branch who had to settle for a place on the bench whilst both Delroy Facey and Luke Chadwick were both missing and were replaced by well again Robbie Blake and Glen Little.
We twice came close to scoring in the opening exchanges but goalkeeper Lee Grant made excellent saves from both Gareth Farrelly and David May. But we weren’t the brighter of the two sides and Derby really gave it a good go right from the start.
We were looking shaky against the height of Danny Dichio and the pace of Lee Morris, son of ex-Claret Colin and it was no surprise when the home side took the lead. It was equally of no surprise that the goal proved to be yet another embarrassing joke for our defence in the way we gave it away.
David May pushed up for offside, right-back Dean West didn’t bother and the result was that Morris broke clear. He had youngster Lee Holmes as an option but took it on himself and scored with ease. Yet another blazing row ensued with May letting everyone inside the stadium know just who he thought was to blame as he singled out West with some verbals and a bit of finger pointing.
In the next few minutes it is hard to believe that Derby didn’t treble their lead as further mistakes let in first Morris again and then Huddlestone but Jensen came to the rescue both times. Jensen had caused the second of the problems himself in what had been another less than confident start by the Danish keeper but he could hardly be faulted with the next attack when Holmes found himself in yards and yards of space down our right hand side with West to the left of both central defenders.
Don’t be fooled though into thinking that Derby were playing well, they didn’t look a side with enough ability to play well but we were making it too damned easy for them.
Half time came and we had hardly caused them to break sweat after the opening few minutes and it was going to take a massive change in fortunes in the second half to turn this one round.
Things did change in the second half and we certainly got more possession than we had done in the first half and we even created some chances for ourselves. The first fell to Richard Chaplow but in trying to place his shot he didn’t put enough into it and Grant was able to save. Chappy wasn’t at his best today but was still the pick in midfield. Mind you that was not difficult with the far more experienced Tony Grant and Gareth Farrelly absolutely woeful.
Apart from that it was a case of Blake and Little seeing a lot of the ball but creating very little although there were a couple of headers that came to nothing. That was until Ian Moore had the chance to bring us right back into the game but he contrived to hit his shot wide from the edge of the box – a really poor effort when an on target shot would have certainly taken us level.
The peace was disturbed in the away end shortly after this when the heavy handed and officious stewards stormed in and bravely marched an 11 year old lad out of the ground. Still it provided some excitement.
Derby hit the bar with ten minutes to go but then we threw just about everyone forward but it was all frantic stuff and hardly looked as though it would bring us that equaliser and in the four minutes added on it all went horribly wrong.
First Arthur was sent off for a professional foul after he brought down Dichio (and thank goodness we never signed him) just over the half way line and then in one last attack Derby won themselves a penalty that Taylor hammered home to give them a 2-0 victory. We could have little complaint at either decision from referee Uriah Rennie who had a good game.
Our central defenders played reasonably well as did Richard Chaplow but there it ends as far as I am concerned and the rest of them need to take a long hard look at their performances because they simply were not good enough.
Apparently Stan told the waiting press after the game that it was shit and something needed to be done and who am I to disagree. Quite simply if nothing is done it will be more than that cup win at Pride Park that is a fading memory.
We need people to Walk up for Burnley next week and we desperately need to give them a reason to walk up.
The teams were,
Derby: Lee Grant, Richard Jackson, Michael Johnson, Youl Mawene (Pablo Mills 37), Peter Kennedy, Candido Costa (Simo Valakari 86), Tom Huddlestone, Ian Taylor, Lee Holmes (Paul Boertien 69), Lee Morris, Danny Dichio. Subs not used: Marcus Tudgay, Lee Camp.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Dean West (Lee Roche 75), David May, Arthur Gnohere, Mo Camara, Glen Little, Richard Chaplow, Tony Grant, Gareth Farrelly (Graham Branch 57), Robbie Blake, Ian Moore. Subs not used: Mark McGregor, Joel Pilkington, Matt O’Neill.
Referee: Uriah Rennie (Sheffield).