Town Host Rams Aiming for Season's First Double Friday, 29th Dec 2017 18:11 Town face fourth-placed Derby County at Portman Road on Saturday afternoon looking bring 2017 to a close by recording their first double of the campaign. The Blues, who are 10th, five points off the play-offs and nine behind Saturday's opponents, claimed a memorable 1-0 victory over the Rams at Pride Park - their third 1-0 win in a row on Derby turf where they are unbeaten since November 2006 - a month ago with Callum Connolly netting the only goal with a fifth minute header. “It’s odd that we’re playing them so close but that’s because the game was initially postponed because of their Carabao Cup tie,” manager Mick McCarthy said. “It was a fabulous win for us up there because it was just at the time that we’d probably had a bit of a dip and there were some big games coming up. It was a really good performance and it was a fabulous result.” McCarthy believes the big-spending Rams, who have won four and drawn one without conceding since losing to the Blues, will be serious challengers for promotion this season. “I do, yes,” he said. “In Gary Rowett they’ve got a really good [manager]. I think he sets his teams up really well. They’re playing good football, Derby, they’ve got good players. “When he was at Birmingham - what was it, 12 months ago when they sacked him? - they’d beaten us the night before and we were in with them talking about the money that they’d got, that they were going to spend. Or his staff were, I didn’t see Gary, he’d been called to the boardroom. “And it looked like it was going places at Birmingham because they were just outside the top six. "I think he’s fairly pragmatic about it, he doesn’t play football for football’s sake, he gets the job done. “Since we beat them they haven’t been beaten and they haven’t conceded a goal, so you can see the level of team they are and how we’re going to have to play and play well tomorrow to beat them. “It’s just gone completely south since he left Birmingham and Derby look like they’re on the up. And I’ve no doubt they’ll be at least a play-off contender.” Having made five changes for the 0-0 draw with QPR on Boxing Day, McCarthy is likely to recall some of those he rested. However, Bartosz Bialkowski will continue in goal with Jonas Knudsen at left-back, the Blues having taken up their option to keep the Danish international for another season at the end of last week. “That was just a matter of administration doing that,” McCarthy said. “He’s been great, he really has been terrific. “He’s a great pro, a great lad, everybody loves him around the place. That was an easy one.” At right-back, Jordan Spence is likely to return for Dominic Iorfa, while skipper Luke Chambers and Adam Webster will again be the centre-halves. McCarthy says he’s pleased with the progress Webster, who was signed from Portsmouth in the summer of 2016, has made since moving into the Championship having been playing in League Two for Pompey. “He’s really come on,” he reflected. “It was hard for him to come on at all because he was injured for so long. “He had his ankle when he came here, he’d done and then he recovered, he looked like such a statuesque defender the way he played and the way he came out with the ball. “And then we lost him again through a similar ankle injury and I think it’s taken him a while to get back.
“He’s always going to have that [ability on the ball], but what I like about him is that he’s defended better. It’s about keeping the ball out of the net if you’re a defender and I think he’s certainly worked on that, we’ve shown him bits on that. “And I think Chambo is a real help to him in terms of playing there at centre-back. And in fairness to Adam, he plays on the left-hand side of defence and I know from my own personal experiences if he was on the right side it would be a lot easier, but he copes with it pretty well.” In central midfield, where the Blues have eight players out injured, Kevin Bru seems certain to return for Teddy Bishop, who has been ruled out until pre-season due to a ruptured hamstring suffered in the first half on Tuesday. Bru missed that game as he was at a funeral. Ahead of those two, Bersant Celina looks set to return on the left with Martyn Waghorn in the middle and David McGoldrick likely to get the nod ahead of Grant Ward on the right. Joe Garner will continue as the lone out-and-out striker. For the Rams, ex-Blues loanee Tom Lawrence could come back into the starting line-up having come on as a sub in the 0-0 draw at Hull on Tuesday after overcoming an ankle injury. Midfielder Bradley Johnson was the man he replaced at the KCOM Stadium and the former Canary is a doubt for tomorrow’s match due to a back problem. Derby boss Rowett is considering making changes with the trip to Suffolk following the Boxing Day visit to Hull City, with a home match against another of the teams in the play-off places, Sheffield United, on New Year's Day. "Every team will have a game where they don't play with the same spark," he told the Derby Telegraph. "That's just human nature. You're not going to perform brilliantly every game. "You're not going to maintain that level of performance all the time - unless of course you are Man City! "For me, it's about getting that back. It's going to be a challenge over the next two games, because they are both difficult. "We've got a long journey to Ipswich, quite soon after the last game, and we've then got to turn around very quickly for the Sheffield United game. “You have to say, it's quite a difficult fixture list around this period of time, particularly for fans. "I'm not sure why they don't do the same thing as they do in the lower leagues, where they try to keep the teams local for Boxing Day and those games around new year. "I think it's pretty doable in this division. But it is what it is and we've got to deal with that.” Historically, Town have had the better of Derby, winning 36 games (34 in the league), drawing 21 (19) and losing 27 (26). Derby have won their last three games at Portman Road with the Blues' last home win against the Rams the 2-1 victory in March 2014 secured via a last-gasp Christophe Berra goal. The away team has won the last six matches between the teams, three at Portman Road, three at Pride Park. Infamously, Derby striker David Nugent has a remarkable record of scoring 15 in 16 games against the Blues for his various clubs. The one-time England international, who joined Derby in January but missed their visit to Suffolk later that month with a knee injury, has amassed an even more daunting 10 goals in his eight games at Portman Road for Preston, Portsmouth, Leicester, Middlesbrough and the England U21s in a game against Moldova in 2006. Late last month, Connolly’s first goal for the Blues in the fifth minute saw Town to a 1-0 victory over Derby at Pride Park, extending Town’s unbeaten run on Rams’ turf to 10 games and 11 years. Connolly flicked home a header from a Martyn Waghorn corner on the right and despite spells of Derby pressure, the Blues hung on to claim all three points. At Portman Road in January, first-half goals from Craig Bryson, Tom Ince and former Blue Darren Bent saw the Nugent-less Rams to a comfortable 3-0 victory over Town. Bryson and Ince netted on nine and 12 to set the Rams on their way and Bent added the third just before the break and the Blues never looked like getting back into the game. Derby attacker Lawrence moved to Pride Park in the summer from Leicester for an initial £5 million with the fee potentially rising to £7 million. The Wales international enjoyed a hugely successful loan spell with the Blues last season, scoring 11 goals in 34 starts and two sub appearances. Former Town striker Bent joined the Rams in the summer of 2015 following a loan spell in the second half of the previous season. The 33-year-old came through the academy ranks at Playford Road and went on to make 116 starts and 25 sub appearances for the first team, scoring 55 goals, between 2001 and 2005 before moving on to then-Premier League Charlton. In addition to Bent, Rams centre-half and skipper Richard Keogh was an academy schoolboy and Portman Road ballboy during his formative years, while striker Chris Martin, a former Norwich City player, is from Suffolk having been born in Beccles. Town keeper-coach Malcolm Webster held a similar position at Derby under George Burley's spell in charge of the Rams. Saturday’s referee is Oliver Langford from the West Midlands, who has shown 76 yellow cards and three red in 23 games so far this season. Langford's most recent Town match was the 3-1 defeat at Cardiff in October when he booked Tommy Smith and one home player. He was also in charge of the 2-0 home victory over Brentford in August in which he booked Myles Kenlock and two Bees. Prior to that he refereed the 2-1 win at Burton at Easter in which he cautioned only Freddie Sears. He also refereed the 1-1 East Anglian derby draw at Carrow Road in February in which he again yellow-carded Sears as well as Spence. Before that he was the man in the middle for the 2-0 home defeat to Fulham on Boxing Day in which he booked Lawrence, McGoldrick and one Cottager. Langford also took control of the 2-0 home victory over Burton Albion last October in which he cautioned Skuse and two Brewers. Before that he refereed the 0-0 home draw with Charlton in April last year, in which he yellow-carded Knudsen and two Addicks, and the 2-1 home defeat to Leicester in November 2013, in which he booked only Chambers. The only other Town game he has officiated in was the 2-0 defeat at Leeds in April of the same year when David Norris, by then with the Whites, was the only player cautioned. Squad from: Bialkowski, M Crowe, Spence, Iorfa, Knudsen, Kenlock, Webster, Chambers, T Smith, Skuse, Connolly, Bru, McDonnell, Ward, Celina, McGoldrick, Sears, Garner, Waghorn, Morris.
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