Only a madman more than a match for the asylum caretakers would suggest that Derby County would survive the drop from the Premiership at the end of this season. Even the Rams’ manager Paul Jewell has resigned himself and his team to Championship football next season.
Derby were beaten by Wigan Athletic 2-0 in a Premiership relegation six-pointer on Saturday at the JJB Stadium in what was Jewell’s first return to the club he had saved from relegation last season. And Jewell isn’t at all happy to have observed what his poor Derby players had to give.
Jewell says:
I’m embarrassed. Not because it’s at Wigan, but because of the way we played.
Nobody likes losing – you can accept losing, but not on a performance like that. It was a disgrace.
Today is a million, million miles away – light years away – from a so-called Premier League team.
That performance wouldn’t win any game at any level of football and the sooner we get this season out of the way the better.
If they don’t want to be here, that’s fine – this is a great football club and some of the players are not worthy of being here.
It’s a fact – I’m not saying that because we lost today. I’ve been here 13 league games and some of them are not good enough.
This reminds me of the first time I came to Wigan, with players who think they’re good enough but they’re nowhere near good enough, and it takes a while to ship them out.
It’s a tough time for me and a tough time for everybody connected with Derby.
I’ll defend any team that goes out there and tries their best – I’m not saying they’re not trying, but they’re so far away from where I expect them to be it’s not even funny.
Seems like only the obscure American investors could change the contour of the team in the summer when they trickle in their promised funds to make the team competitive enough to storm back to the Premier League.