[jjamez]

So the season is now finally upon us, although we, like Derby have to wait a wee bit longer before we can see our beloved clubs kick a ball due to Sky. Not that I am complaining mind, it means that I can actually attend the game, plus I feel football looks better under the lights, maybe thats just me?


The new season officially starts tonight where newly promoted Luton Town host Middlesbrough, whilst Saturday has seen Nottingham Forest Vs WBA moved for the telebox cameras, with Brizzle City host Leeds on the Sunday.




Its been a while since we saw this happen, so what has changed or who?

Well to begin with Cardiff and Fulham have joined us in the relegation party, whilst Norwich, Villa (via playoffs) and Sheffield United replaced us. Leaving the Championship was Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham with Charlton (via playoffs), Barnsley and Luton taking their places.

Obviously it has been preseason and as such there has been numerous managerial changes in the league as well as transfers between clubs. But without wanting to ruin anyone else's match threads, I'll focus on just us and our curl horned visitors.

So speaking of which, I shall begin with our guests.

Fresh from coming second in the playoff final there was much speculation surrounding manager Frank Lampard who was being courted by former employer Chelsea. The official line was always that he was not going anywhere, but when a club that you have such an affiliation with, who are in the premier league and have numerous talented players on their books, regardless of transfer ban, they are always going to be hard to turn down.

So offski Frankie went to Chelski and in came former AZ Alkmaar and Al-Jazira midfielder Phillip Cocu (he may have made his name at a bigger European club, but who cares?) with his remit being to continue where Lampard left off and take the club one further, back into the premier league.

There has been a fair few changes in the Derby squad, firstly Mason Mount, last seasons top scorer Harry Wilson and Fikayo Tomori have all seen their loans expire and them return to their parent clubs. Also departing the club was former town midfielder Jacob Butterfield who has joined Luton, former LA Galaxy defender Ashley Cole who is expected to retire and link up with Frank again at Chelsea and former England striker David Nugent. Whilst Craig Bryson joined Aberdeen and Bradley Johnson has gone to Blackburn.

In terms of incomings, the rams today signed former Portsmouth defender Matt Clarke on loan from his new club Brighton, whilst splashing out on a new club record signing in Krystian Bielik for 7.5 million from Arsenal. Also joining the midlands club are Graeme Shinnie from Aberdeen, whilst reported town target Kieran Dowell has joined on loan from Everton.




In terms of their preseason, it all started off nicely in Yankland with a 2-0 victory over Sarasota Metropolis, with two goals from Jack Marriott seeing them over the line. They followed that up with another victory, this time against fellow championship side Bristol City, with Mason Bennett and Ikechi Anya getting on the score sheet. Next up was Burton where a Martyn Waghorn hat-trick saw them to a 5-2 victory. They finished their preseason off with 2 defeats against Girona and Rangers respectively.

So who may we recognise from previously wearing the hallowed blue and white stripes of town?

Well who better to start of with other than the player named captain for this season Scott Malone wait no sorry, its Richard Keogh and the eyes that can see into your past and future.



most remembered at town for a brief loan spell where he scored a 40 yard goal against someone like Carlisle. Other than that, I remember nothing of his spell??

seeing as he has been loosely mentioned once before we shall go for the calamitous footballer Scott 'Bugsy' Malone. Signed upon our promotion to the premier league from Fulham to provide competition to Chris Lowe, arguably one of the many transfers that failed for us in the top division. Probably remembered most by town fans for kicking the ball into his own face. Often.



So from a gangly fullback to a not so tall player, in fact maybe in the top 1 for the smallest player to ever play for town. Duane Holmes.

Wannabe yank Holmes came through towns academy as a diminutive full back, however, Mark Lillis saw a future in the game for him further up the field as an attacking midfielder. It soon transpired that Lillis was right as Holmes scored and put in performances for the young squads before getting a chance in the first team. He looked like he had something when he first broke into the side, but soon found himself out of new manager David Wagners plans and eventually at Scunthorpe, where he ultimately earned a move up the leagues to Derby, where is yet to fully establish himself.



Others to have played for both in the recent past include a player with Ronaldo in his name, unfortunately for both us and Derby, he never quite fulfilled those hefty goalden boots. Yes you've guessed it, its the Jamaican international Theo Robinson. Do we need more than that? Well if you do, he scored 16 goals in 45 appearances in his first spell at the club. He fell out of favour with Lee Clark and moved to Milwall, before moving on to Derby. His time at Derby was similar to here, scoring 18 in 67. He came back for a short and fruitless loan spell here, before being released by Derby and becoming a bit of a journeyman.

Another recent player is one that has been aforementioned, Jacob Butterfield. He came to town via Middlesbrough as part of the deal that saw Adam Clayton move the other way. During the season at town he was named player of the season, however when Derby came calling his head was turned and he soon departed to Pride Park for £5 million. His time at Derby was a bit varied as he made 80 appearances for the side but also had loan spells away at Sheffield Wednesday and Bradford, before having his contract torn up to allow him to join Luton.

The final one I'll give is that of Tom Ince. Now he was someone that I felt lacked that little bit of luck at Town, came with the reputation as someone who didnt work hard, but I felt he did his fair share of work but ultimately his confidence in the final third was lacking. He was probably no worse than Diakhaby or Mbenza who were brought in to replace him, although we did well to get the money we did for him. If only Stoke didnt get their own back with Sobhi (although he is looking to be a bit of a cash cow for us!)



So who should we be worried about I hear you ask, go on you can ask...do it...now

Well, the answer would be a one Tom Lawrence, who may not be the most blisteringly quick winger going, but he is a very technically adept player, capable of causing problems for all sorts of teams. An eye for goal and will most likely be on set piece duty, so we better be looking to keep him quiet.

Another tricky customer is that of fellow forward Martyn Waghorn. Maybe not as technical as Lawrence, but will be someone to look out for if we are to give him half a yard around our area. Likewise Jack Marriott who they signed from Peterborough is someone to look out for and the thinking would be that they will be the Derby County front 3 come Monday evening provided Marriott proves his fitness over the weekend.

Other team news for the Rams, Midfielder Duane Holmes (thigh) is set to miss out against his former club while Cocu will also be without Scott Carson (groin), George Thorne (calf), Andre Wisdom (knee) and Craig Forsyth (knee). Summer recruits Graeme Shinnie and Kieran Dowell should be involved.

From the press conference that Cocu had this morning;

“We have worked hard for the start of the season and now it’s coming up. We have to more patient than other teams because we play on Monday but we can’t wait to get started.”
“We are looking forward to the game and curious to how we can cope with an opponent like Huddersfield. They are one of the favourites for promotion so hopefully we can give a good presentation for our supporters.”
“They have a lot of quality in their team. They manage the ball well and are organised. We have to be on top of our game to get a good result.”



So what about town?

Well Jan still remains and looks to have got his feet firmly under the desk now ahead of the coming season. His first assistant Andreas Winkler has left the club and has been replaced by experienced coach Colin Bell (not that one, a different one) otherwise its as you were until David Webb (Jason Bourne's alter ego) takes over in a couple of weeks.

On the playing staff side there has been numerous changes with Danny Williams, Jonas Lossl and Laurent Depoitre all being released, whilst Chris Lowe has gone back home to Germany to play for Dresden, Phillip Billing has got his deckchair out as he goes down to Bournemouth, Tommy Smith has departed to join Stoke and we are currently waiting for Zanka to get on a plane to probably join Fenebache.

In regards to incomings, the first player to come through the door was centre half Tommy Elphick from Aston Villa, the centre half has won promotion there as well as at Bournemouth. He recently had a loan spell at Hull, who saw their form drop when he was recalled by Villa. Hopefully he will provide a solid head at the back to partner Schindler and help Edmonds- Green and Stankovich develop much like Hudson did.

The other incomings have been relatively young, with highly rated midfielder Reece Brown joining from Forest Green, from what I have seen of him so far albeit in preseason, he has looked a composed and tidy player, with an eye for a pass.

Josh Koroma joined from Leyton Orient after being linked with us in January. The winger/striker is making a big step up coming from a team winning promotion from the conference and at times it has shown during preseason, but there does seem to be some quality in there too, not afraid to try and take a player on.

Herbert Bockhorn has joined from Dortmund II and so far in preseason he has looked a little bit out of his depth, however, the second half against Montpellier gave me hope as he looked to catch up with the rest and seemed to be a lively player. Hopefully he continues the progress.

Finally Kamil Grabara joined on a season long loan from Liverpool, only played one game in preseason against Doncaster, but looked to be the sort of goalkeeper that we've been wanting to play with.

The most important thing really for me is the fact that at this moment we still have Mooy, Schindler, Hogg, Grant and Kongolo still in the side and hopefully that will be the case once the window has closed properly around Europe.



In regards to team news we are expected to have a pretty much full strength squad to pick from, with Mounie being likely to miss out having only returned to training on Thursday, although a bench appearance isnt out of the equation.

What will Jan's first 11 of the season be, I'm not too sure but for me it would probably be Grabara in goal, a back four of Haderjgonaj, Elphick, Schindler and Kongolo. A midfield three of Hogg, Bacuna and Mooy with a front three of Pritchard, Grant and Diakhaby.

The bench then can consist of possibly something like, Schofield, Stankovich, Brown, Koroma, Mbenza, Kachunga and Rajiv

SO what has Jan had to say?

“It’s been a very tough, intense summer. We went through everything and looked at all the details.
“We had a really good pre-season with some good results.
“The following games will show where we are. I’m looking forward to it!”

“I feel like we have a result togetherness. We have a good atmosphere in pre-season.
“We are focused on what we are doing. The workload the players put in really impressed me!”

“It’s important that we first of all stabilise ourselves.
“We have to get back to the habit of winning.
“We have to bring forward that winning mentality.”

“The first six games will show us where we really are.
“It’s the belief in what we are doing that matters.”

“I know that a different manager will bring a different style.
“I had a look at Phillip Cocu’s play style, but we don’t want to focus too much on what they do.”

“I am very excited for the derby game.
“When I think of our supporters, our last pre-season game had a good atmosphere.
“I’ve seen people smiling and we want to show our best.
“I’m excited to play in front of our fans again.”

“Austria helped me get into the players’ heads without a pressure situation.”
We put in a lot of hard work in a physical way and a mental way.

“The players completely believed in what we were doing.
“A big credit to how my players went through this pre-season with me.
“It felt like we were really together.”

“We played nine games in pre-season, two behind-closed-doors, so each player had enough time to present themselves.
“My idea is clear on how I want to play against derby.”

“My aim was to bring back the smile on everyone’s faces and I’m still working with that.
“I want our supporters to come with a smile and to go with us through thick and thin.
“The togetherness of this club is really special. I know what htafc means to the supporters.”

“For me, it’s more important what we can do rather than what they can do.
“I’m sure it’s the same for derby.
“It’s about us to show our quality against them.”

“The lads trust in what we are doing.
“I wanted to stabilise the defence first; that’s the foundation.
“They know what we want to do with and without the ball.”

“At the moment everyone is fine and I have a full squad.
“Hopefully it stays like that until Monday!”



over to yous    

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one, jjamez.

I like the look of your starting XI. If we can get off to a good start and not concede early, we're in for a good season.
If we lose this, it will be a bit of a thump to the guts. Confidence drains and struggles ahead once more. Like last season when we outplayed Chelsea only to go in 0-2 down at half time.

Come on Town. We can do this.

[theo_luddite]

Nice one to start the season off jjamez

Gonna have to watch this on the tellybox sadly.

Bit pointless having a season card and then not being able to make the game because they move it to a time that makes it impossible to get home at a sensible time on a school night. 3 or 4 hours kip before getting up to get ready for work isn't a good idea when there's enough idiots to try and avoid on the M6 who are supposedly awake at stupid o'clock on Tuesday morning.

Bit of a bogey side for us Derby so 3 points would be really nice from this one to get the season up and running. With a squad now supposedly buying into Siewerts ideas lets hope we see more games like the attacking part of the West Ham (away) game last season and fewer of the defensive last 15 minutes cock-ups.

[jjamez]

well last time we were in the same league as Derby, we took 4 points from them thanks to Kachunga and was it Collin MacaQuaner? safe to say that if we took 4 points from every team this year i would be very happy!

[Lord Snooty]

Yes Big Col stroked one home early doors. Looked like a glorious victory on the cards until that lad Butterfield equalised late on.

[jjamez]

---

Maybe that didn't work. Snoots will bail me out with it!!

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Town’s team vs Derby County
1. Kamil Grabara
4. Tommy Elphick
5. Terence Kongolo
6. Jonathan Hogg
7. Juninho Bacuna
10. Aaron Mooy
11. Adama Diakhaby
16. Karlan Grant
21. Alex Pritchard
26. Christopher Schindler ©
33. Florent Hadergjonaj

Substitutes
Ryan Schofield; Elias Kachunga, Herbert Bockhorn, Isaac Mbenza, Collin Quaner, Jon Gorenc Stanković, Lewis O’Brien

---

Derby County XI vs. Huddersfield Town: Roos, Keogh ©, Dowell, Waghorn, Lawrence, Jozefzoon, Clarke, Evans, Bogle, Huddlestone, Malone.

Subs: Mitchell, Shinnie, Marriott, Bennett, Lowe, Davies, Knight.

[jjamez]

Not too far off what I said for us

[Lord Snooty]

Sweet Scotty Malone.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Possibly an exaggeration but we are cocking up good and proper and allowed them to score twice.