What were you doing on the 17th September 2007? I know what Derby County was doing. Winning a Premier League match against a struggling, Keegan-less Newcastle United side. I hope the Derby fans had a helluva day out, because that win directly preceded their streak of 36 consecutive league matches without a win (353 days). [Read the rest of this entry »]

Paul Jewell arrived at Pride Park full of optimism and was confident that he could improve Derby’s fortunes. However, it appears as though the Rams were a lot better off two seasons ago (apart from financially of course) when Billy Davies was at the helm, steering the underdogs to promotion at the first time of asking. It now appears as though the scouser could be joining his predecessor as a former County manager. [Read the rest of this entry »]

While Paul Jewell could do little about County’s relegation from the Premier League last season, it didn’t seem as though there was much improvement on Billy Davies’ record in the top flight. The former Wigan manager brought in plenty of new faces, but they couldn’t land him a win all season and it still appears as though he’s having problems getting his team to gel. [Read the rest of this entry »]

The Rams may be one of the favourites to be promoted from the Championship this season, although it’s possible that many of the Derby players will still be suffering from a hangover. That’s not because they’re heavy drinkers but more down the fact that County accrued just 11 points in the Premier League last season. Nevertheless, one man who’s backing them is their manager Paul Jewell, funny that! [Read the rest of this entry »]

What happens when a team who have won just one home match all season come up against a side who have won one away match in the league this term? All will become clear at Pride Park on Sunday, when Derby host Reading in a match which the visitors need to win if they’re to stay in the Premier League.

The Press Association reports that County boss Paul Jewell is far from happy with some of the comments made by Royals assistant manager Kevin Dillon ahead of the match. The latter has said the following.

“Let’s put it this way, if we can’t beat Derby, it will be hard to take.”

However, the fiery Scouser has not taken these comments lying down and Reading probably could have done without indirectly motivating a team who might otherwise have gone through the motions instead at the weekend.

“Kevin Dillon’s comments lack tact. You would think Reading had been playing Champions League all these seasons instead of down in the Championship and the Second Division where Derby and Wigan also came from.

“At Derby this year we’ve been sneered at, we’ve been laughed at, we’ve been ridiculed and I can accept it after the season we’ve had – but for Reading to say things like that is not right.

“The lads have been speaking about it and if I was Reading, who do you want to come to last game of the season? A side that have won once at home all season – but it’s a dangerous game they’re playing,” Jewell added.

Can Derby go out with a bang and drag Reading into the Championship with them? It doesn’t bode well for Steve Coppell’s men, who have failed to score in their past six matches and will be relegated if Fulham win at Portsmouth anyway. Just what is going to happen at Pride Park on Sunday?

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More injury woes for Derby County. Teenager Giles Barnes is expected to face a lengthy spell on the sidelines after picking up an injury in training last week and is set to go for another scan this week.

Derby manager Paul Jewell laments:

It isn’t good news. We’re sending him for a second opinion.

It isn’t cruciate ligament damage but until we get a second opinion we’ll not know too much more.

The news is not as bad for Derby as it is for the player himself. Derby are guaranteed to drop down into the Championship at the end of the season but Giles Barnes would certainly have loved to continue playing football. Poor lad, may he recover soon. Amen.

After Derby County’s 0-0 draw with Sunderland at Pride Park in the English Premiership on Saturday, Derby manager Paul Jewell in a much better tone than he was same time last week when Derby displayed their worst performance of the season against Wigan Athletic.

Jewell says that he is happy with the result and even happier with the spirit that his players exhibited against the Black Cats. Jewell says:

The players tried today. Last week was the lowest I’ve been for a long, long time in my football career.

And today was a terrible game, let’s have it right. It was windy conditions, certainly our players were playing with a lack of confidence, the referee was blowing the whistle every two seconds so you’re never going to get a classic.

We have to take anything out of that we can, we got a point, we have got double figures, we got a clean sheet… so for us it is an improvement on last week but that wouldn’t be hard. Terrible game, but we’ve got a point.

Yet there’s no denying that Derby will be the first club to be relegated from the top flight this season. They have just 10 points from 28 matches and are rock bottom in the league with no practical chance of survival for one more season in the Premiership.

Derby County’s Robbie Savage has missed most of the season with a plethora of injuries and he is unlikely to return soon. He has played just 7 times for the Rams this season and is expected to stay at Derby Park when Derby play Championship football next season.

Yet Derby boss Paul Jewell sympathises with Savage’s condition and says:

Robbie seems to be carrying one injury after another.

We have not seen the best of him by a long way and I think his performances are going to attract criticism, there is no way he has played well.

He is very low on confidence. He is almost trying too hard and is not doing one thing or the other. He is playing with niggling injuries when maybe he shouldn’t be.

I think Robbie is trying to take too much on. He doesn’t want to say he is injured and make it look like he is bailing out, I can see that.

Maybe we will have to have a look at giving him a rest and getting him properly fit, but he will want to play.

He will be an effective player for us, I have no doubt about that. At the moment, like a few other players, he is ineffective, but in his defence there are mitigating circumstances.

The string of injuries to Savage indeed raises the fear that maybe, just maybe, Savage’s playing career is over. Is it indeed so?

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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.

Derby County are rock bottom in the English Premier League and even their manager Paul Jewell has admitted that the Rams cannot avoid the drop to the Championship at the end of the season. Yet he is adamant that he wouldn’t help other struggling teams as the race to finish above the bottom three intensifies.

Jewell says:

There’s no concern to us what other teams do but there is a lot to play for in terms of pride. As we go into games against Wigan, Sunderland and Fulham we could have a bearing on what happens to those teams, but that won’t affect the way we prepare. All we want to do is do the best for ourselves and get past 15 points. The supporters are the most important factor here because when you have thirty-odd thousand watching you have to be concerned about every result and every performance. Nothing else is acceptable. I’m as desperate for results now as I have ever been.

So at Pride Park, the Rams will be playing for pride and the relegation strugglers shouldn’t expect the Rams to play without passion and commitment for the rest of the season.

Derby County manager Paul Jewell is really, really angry at Tottenham Hotspur for allowing club secretary John Alexander handed in the visitors’ team sheet ahead of Saturday’s game at Pride Park instead of the referees. Jewell says:

I take the team sheet in I am the manager and I think the referee deserves a bit more respect. More respect than the club secretary taking the team sheet in. A lot of managers don’t take the team sheet in, but it’s one of my things. I think the manager or one of the senior coaches should represent you. I don’t know who John Alexander is, and I’m not saying John Alexander isn’t a terrific club secretary, but I just didn’t know who this guy was. I don’t expect Juande Ramos to take it in because of the language problem, but certain other members of staff could have done it.

The problem raised by Jewell is that this is no isolated incident:all the major clubs do that. Not that it matters too much but still maybe the bigger clubs should try and stick to the rules, howsoever absurd they may be.

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Derby County have just 9 points in their English Premier League bag and are rock bottom in the league. Only an array of far-fetched miracles could save them and after they were dumped 3-0 by improving Tottenham Hotspur at Pride Park on Saturday, manager Paul Jewell must have realised that he is now fighting a lost battle.

Jewell gives vent to his frustration:

They didn’t deserve to beat us 3-0. It is a kick in the teeth. Everything that could go wrong this season has gone wrong for Derby. The lads have given their best and I cannot ask for anymore than that. As a group I thought we pressed Tottenham. We are never going to be able to out-football Tottenham. We matched them for work-rate and at times they looked a bit rattled. But we just didn’t have that quality when it matters.

Maybe Spurs didn’t deserve to win 3-0 but they did deserve to win alright!

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Tottenham Hotspur were frustrated by Derby County for 70 minutes at Pride Park in the English Premier League on Saturday and it was only after that Spurs manager Juande Ramos brought on striker Dimitar Berbatov that the north London side could open the floodgates against the rock bottom Premiership strugglers.

Ramos hails this victory as a test of character and determination. The Spaniard says:

Football games last for 90 minutes so I think you must look at the overall picture. I think that Derby worked so hard for the first hour that the effort they used started to tell in the last 30 minutes and that is where we were able to make use of it.

Derby boss Paul Jewell of couse sees that game differenlt and moans the loss of 3 points. But at this stage when Spurs are gradually improving, Ramos could take anything as long as he gets 3 points from matches.

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Derby County are doomed for good and only the most insane of persons would vote for a confidence in the rock bottom Premiership club in clawing themselves out of the relegation hole. And thankfully, Paul Jewell is not that man.

The Derby manager has confessed to Sky Sports that he is not to confident that Derby will make it. He says:

No footballer or any manager likes to admit defeat. All I would say is that it is looking highly likely that we will be in the Championship next season. But while there’s games and points to play for we have to give it our best for ourselves and the supporters. There’s no other way around it. I’m not going to say I think we are going to claw it back, because it will be a miracle beyond miracles if we do. But we have got 13 or 14 games left now to try and restore some pride.

Pride? Well, Derby County do play their home matches at pride park, don’t they? But I guess it wouldn’t be a matte of pride when Derby play in the Championship next season.

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And he doesn’t just mean that the Rams won’t win the Champions League! The Guardian report that General Sport Entertainment’s acquisition of Derby County for £50 million will not result in a Liverpool-style scenario, where uncertainty over the club’s finances and manager Rafael Benitez’s future has dogged the Reds season. At least that’s what GSE chairman Andy Appleby is saying:

“The Liverpool situation is different to this one at Derby but I can only tell you that we are extremely transparent. You can come to my house tomorrow night. We are really good honest, trustworthy people who do things the right way and that has helped us become successful,” said Appleby.

“My guess is that they probably made some mistakes that we probably don’t want to repeat. We have no intention of undermining anyone on the football side. We respect the manager and Adam Pearson [the chairman]. They’ve forgotten more about English football than we know.”

Sounds a bit like the budweiser advert, except its: ‘we’ll do the financing, you do the football’. COS will see you round at Andy’s house tonight – do remember to bring a bottle of wine.

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Derby County are rock bottom in the English Premier League and in all probabilities will drop down into the Championship at the end of the season. As if that weren’t enough, they were given a footballing lesson when Preston North End humiliated them 4-1 in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday. Preston themselves are in serious danger of dropping further down the football pyramid; they are at the foot of the Championship and League One football beckons at the end of the season.

But Derby manager Paul Jewell is not losing hope at all. Soccerway.com quotes the former Wigan Athletic boss as saying:

One of the reasons I came here was that hopefully there was going to be some American investment coming in. I have spoken to the investors on a couple of occasions and met them in Manchester so they know it’s a tough job. They know what a state the team is in at the moment. They, like me, see the bigger picture and the bigger picture here is if we get it right it will take off. We had a great season last year. It hasn’t happened this season but I’m hoping I’ll be sat here in a year telling you about the tough times last year that hopefully made not just me stronger, but the club stronger.

This season there would be no investment by the American investors but maybe in the summer, the little club would go a massive facelift and Jewell is hoping for that. But please all you Rams, do not foster hope that you are gong to play top flight English football next season too!

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Derby County manager Paul Jewell appears to have let go of any hope of signing the Rangers custodian Roy Carroll. Sky Sports reports that Jewell has instead decided to turn his eye elsewhere for a goalkeeper since Rangers’ inability to find a goalkeeper for themselves is taking too long.

Carroll was once at Manchester United, if you remember, but he couldn’t cut the ice there. He was not so impressive at West Ham United either and moved to the old firm giants Rangers last summer but again the Northern Ireland player failed to make any headway. He has made just one first team appearance so far this season.

Jewell has this to remark about the deal:

It was close this time last week when we’d got permission to speak to him. Everything was agreed with Roy, but Rangers were looking to bring another goalkeeper in. That is really frustrating, not only for myself but for Roy as well, so it looks as if that’s not going to happen. We might have to move on elsewhere now.

Elsewhere? But where?

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