Come on Derby, let’s go party! (Season 2)

For the first instalment of this series check out -https://medium.com/@danstapleton89/come-on-derby-let-s-go-party-part-1-14bccff48ab7#.6lapj6mxv

The second can be found here https://medium.com/@danstapleton89/come-on-derby-let-s-go-party-season-1-part-b-43cf8e59ff1b#.hql8lppo0

Season Two (2017/18)

The disappointment of losing out on a chance at Wembley on penalties to a Midlands rival still stings over the summer months and my squad should be hungrier than ever to make amends. After the summer break, I am immediately bombarded with offers for my best players. Zach Clough, Jeff Hendrick and Jesse Lingard are all subjects of bids from top division clubs and they all become unsettled immediately, citing a desire to play at the top level. I plead with all three but their minds appear to be made up and a bidding war begins in earnest. We lose Clough to Norwich for a fee of £7.5m, not a bad profit given that he signed for £4m up front and did not trigger any of his clauses to set us back more. Jeff Hendrick gets his move to West Ham for £7m, a sum that I am not exactly pleased to see him go for given his performances last season. The East Londoners were the biggest bidders though, and I have little choice but to let the Irishman go. Star man Jesse Lingard is snapped up by Swansea City for £9.75m and despite him being our top performer of the last year, we have made a huge profit on the £2.5m he was signed for. Goalkeeper Johnsson is also shipped off to Huddersfield after I accept a £1.8m bid for a player who cost just half a million pounds a year ago.

We sign Tyrone Mings from Bournemouth for just £1.9m after he falls out of favour at the club and that means I can sell last season’s surprise star in Lukas Schmitz for £1.4m. Schmitz cost nothing and was on a very low wage but I feel that Mings is an upgrade and that the German will struggle to get games in the coming season. Midfielders Jonny Williams and Jose Campana and target man Felipe Avenetti arrive on free transfers to bolster my squad and we secure another year of Reece Oxford, Ravel Morrison and Kelechi Iheanacho’s services on loan. We manage to pull off a coup by signing Asmir Begovic on loan from Chelsea too and I sign Wayne Hennessey from Crystal Palace for just £250k as back up. Whilst being very pleased with the size of my squad, I feel I am missing the kind of quality that Lingard gave us in the final third so winger Francisco Rodriguez arrives from Wolfsburg on loan and we go all out for Kenneth Paal from PSV Eindhoven. Paal sets us back £5.5m but my scouts have highly recommended him off the back of a very good season and his stats are impressive for a player who has just turned 20. We really struggle through our pre-season friendlies with our only victories coming at Chesterfield and Clairefontaine. And with that, our pre-season business is done.

Derby County start their 2017/18 Championship campaign at Fulham with a side that looks like this — Begovic, Christie, Oxford, Shackell, Mings, Gunnarson, Paal, Muric, Ravel, Rodriguez, Iheanacho. We gain a creditable point against them despite being a goal up until the very last minute of the game. We progress in the League Cup and win our first home game of the season against Brighton by a goal to nil with Iheanacho getting on the scoresheet for the first time in what should be a fruitful campaign for him. From here we lose four games on the bounce, getting eliminated from the League Cup to Fleetwood in the process. That run sees us drop to 19th in the table but after the international break we thrash Bolton and Bradford 4–1 and 4–0 respectively at Pride Park to shoot us back up into the top half. Aron Gunnarson pops up to win it late on at the KC Stadium in our next game and those three points fire us up the table to fifth place. We pick up a fair five points in our next three games before we face our fierce rivals Nottingham Forest at the City Ground. We absolutely batter them and come away with a 3–1 victory after goals from James McClean, Rodriguez and Muric. A home defeat to Reading follows and we shoot ourselves in the foot by relinquishing a 1–0 lead to Huddersfield in the next match as they beat us 5–2. A 3–2 win at QPR is followed by a draw at St Andrews against Birmingham before the team produce a performance of the highest quality in a 5–1 win at home to Blackburn Rovers.

Then it all goes horribly wrong.

We lose 2–0 at Charlton before we somehow contrive to lose 3–1 at home to Sunderland after dominating the game. We are hopeful that a win at home to Rotherham will see a return to form but the Yorkshire side hold us to a draw at Pride Park and we don’t get the confidence boost the side needs. After a slight change in formation we put in a decent performance in a 2–1 defeat at Cardiff but then we lose heavily at Stoke City. They put us away by seven goals to two at the Britannia and we return to the start point of my journey. It is Iheanacho’s consolation that day that leads me to start this series of articles. I wanted to write up what had happened up until that point in the hope that I may gain some kind of creative spark in order to kick start our season and my reign as Derby manager. I had no idea how this would work but it was worth giving it a go, eh?

So we head into the Christmas period in the worst form of my time with the club and we next face Ipswich Town at Pride Park. Kelechi Iheanacho’s winner nineteen minutes from time gives us a priceless three points that will hopefully kick-start a charge toward promotion. Jamie Hanson, a young central defender I brought in from the under 21s to replace an out-of-sorts Reece Oxford, pops up with a winner at Brighton on Boxing Day and we continue our good form with home victories over Fulham and MK Dons to close out the year. The Cottagers then end our hopes of an FA Cup run with a 3–0 win over us in West London after I rest a significant amount of players ahead of an important game against Brentford at Griffin Park. I tell the players how it is imperative to make a statement to the rest of the division by winning at the home of the unbeaten league leaders. At 45 minutes we lead 4–0 and we add one more goal to that tally by full time. That statement was well and truly made but our winning run is brought to an abrupt end when we manage to lose 2–1 at home to Villa the next weekend. I add to the side by signing Gerard Deulofeu on loan from Everton and a transfer-listed Ruben Vezo from Valencia for just £425k. We draw at Bolton and thrash Bradford at Valley Parade to move within three points of the play-offs. Muric and Iheanacho keep up their fine form to fire us into the play-off positions as they score seven goals between them in the next two games against Hull and Bristol City. 2–2 draws against Bournemouth and Scunthorpe knock us back out of those places and we next host Forest in a big East Midlands derby. Iheanacho’s winner in the 92nd minute sends the fans into raptures and we climb back into a play-off spot with a victory at Reading the following weekend. The run-in gets tough as we beat Huddersfield and Charlton in between defeats to QPR, Birmingham and Blackburn with Iheanacho leading the division’s goalscoring charts by some way. As we approach our final five games we sit in seventh place but start with a win at the Stadium of Light against fellow play-off hopefuls Sunderland thanks to, you guessed it, Iheanacho’s double. We manage to pick up seven points from next three games and approach our final match of the league campaign in sixth place knowing that a victory will see us into the play-offs for a second season in a row. We face Stoke City at Pride Park and fall behind early on but manage to drag ourselves back into the game with a Muric free-kick 23 minutes from time. We head into stoppage time outside of the play-off place we crave but the man of the moment Iheanacho pops up to fire the team into fifth spot with a 91st minute winner.

So, now Derby face Sunderland in a two-legged play-off to decide who goes to Wembley for the chance to play in England’s top division next season. We are at home first this time and it is imperative that we have a lead to take to the Stadium of Light. Iheanacho is there in the 67th minute to give us a vital advantage and we hold on to secure the victory. In the second leg, we adopt a defensive approach and manage to keep the home side at bay until the 56th minute when Andros Townsend’s shot flies past Hennessey in our goal and then Sunderland score a decisive second goal six minutes from time. The second completely takes the wind out of our sails and we concede another late on to consign us to yet another Championship campaign next time out.

I should be happy with our season after a disastrous late autumn that could’ve seen me out of a job, but I can’t help but feel it is yet another opportunity lost and that we should’ve held onto our lead in the play-off semi final. The stand out players are certainly Robert Muric and Kelechi Iheanacho and I strongly believe that if we can keep them for just one more season then we will push for automatic promotion next season. Iheanacho finishes the campaign with an astounding 38 league goals and Muric adds 23 assists to his 20 goals.

Elsewhere

Arsenal win the Premier League title again with a ten point lead over second placed Chelsea. Real Madrid secure La Liga with a record breaking 107 points and Juventus once again win Serie A. PSG win Ligue 1 back from Monaco and Bayern ease their way to the Bundesliga again. Arsenal win the Champions League for the first time in their history with a victory over the Italian champions in the final at Wembley.

Thanks for reading and I hope to upload the document of my third season in charge of Derby County in the coming days.