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Match Reort 2000-01 - Derby County (a)
Derby County 2 Newcastle 0
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Date: Sat 23rd December 2000 3pm.
Venue: Pride Park Conditions: Poor. Crowd: 29,978. 4,000 short of capacity. Referee: Rob Harris (Oxford). |
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Teams:
DCFC (normal home kit):
Poom, Carbonari, Riggott, West, Burley, Johnson, Eranio (Kinkladze 71 mins),
Powell, Delap, Christie, Burton (Morris 87 mins).
Subs not used: Higginbotham, Martin, Oakes
Booked: Eranio (47 mins)
Sent off: None.
NUFC (That horrible combination of black away
shirt with white shorts):
Given (Harper 45 mins), Barton, Marcelino, Griffin,
Hughes, S.Caldwell (Glass 66 mins), Acuna, Bassedas, Lee (Cordone 78 mins), Dyer,
Shearer.
Subs not used: Lua-Lua, Gavilan
Booked: Lee (45 mins), Marcelino (72 mins)
Sent off: None.
Goals:
33 mins. A poor headed clearance from Barton fell to the unmarked
Carbonari who smashed it in from the edge of the box. 0-1
Half time: DCFC 1 NUFC 0
73 mins. Kinkladze rolled the ball to Burley who crossed for the unmarked Burton to have the easiest of headers. Domi (currently in France) was probably the nearest defender in attendance.... 0-2
Full time: DCFC 2 NUFC 0
We said:
Uncle Bobby said:
"Robert Lee is definitely out for the festive period, Christian Bassedas has a poor nose but he's a tough case, and we don't know yet with Shay Given.
"But this and Didier Domi's disappearance has left us short at the back and we've some tough matches ahead.
"We lost the game to two set-plays and that annoys me intensely. We didn't win the first ball and Carbonari came on to it unmarked, and the second was also a free-kick. I wouldn't say they were queueing up at the far post but there were two of them unmarked and that gets under my skin a bit.
"You talk about it, plan it out for players, practise it in training and you still can't do it. If you are careless driving a car you get killed, so don't be careless on the football field either."
They said:
Jim Smith said:
"It's a merry Christmas - for two days at least. I thought Carbonari was outstanding. Taribo West was the man to set us up early on - he was very assertive and looked the part - but I thought Carbonari made some very telling headers, showed good positional play and obviously got a goal, which was very important. The work-rate of the whole side was tremendous."
Waffle:
We may have lost at Arsenal by five goals
and looked as if we were sharing the same pitch merely by historical
accident, but this lamentable two goal defeat at Pride Park left far more of
a mark on the travelling hordes behind one goal.
Put simply, we were rotten. Not in a crazy suicidal way, but in a mediocre,
never going to score, coasting in third gear sort of fashion. To be beaten
by a bunch of Nationwide league draft dodgers, snotty nosed kids, gap tooth
Celtic rejects and perenially unfit Continentals is nowt short of a
disgrace.
Derby were poor - their supporters knew it, their Manager knew it, but at
least they had a semblance of defensive organisation, presumably instilled
by the recently returned Colin Todd. Having said that, Toddy and a few of
his old Baseball ground mates could easily have coped with our offensive
efforts, with only a late chance or two spoiling our record of not managing
an effort anywhere near goal. While one effort was bundled away from the
line in what looked like suspicious circumstances (later disproved by TV),
our other attempts consisted of a Shearer header that Poom got a hand to and
a Glass effort that may have been responsible for the Mir space station
losing radio contact with Earth.
For some reason, Bobby seemed to confuse Pride Park with the Stadio Olimpico,
opting to field a five man defence with Bobby Lee meandering in front of it.
All the more galling then, to see our boys playing hunt the thimble twice as
set pieces brought about goals when gaps appeared in front of our keepers
(Given first half, Harper after the interval.)
Not much more to say really, except to again criticise some of our players
for slouching off at the finish despite receiving applause from a travelling
support that had kept up a barrage of noise throughout the game. In stark
contrast, the home fans took well over an hour to produce a single attempt
at a song, which turned out to be some indecipherable ditty about Forest.
Performances like this make you question why efforts are made to
secure tickets, fork out for travelling and subject oneself to a punishing
regime of pre-match boozing, when the objects of your affection seem to
care not a jot whether they ruin your day or not.
Performances like this make you glad that we've already acquired a
reasonable number of points this season, and that other so-called big clubs
are even further upstream with their rudderless craft.
Performances like this make you wonder if Santa really is a mackem.
Let's roast our chestnuts on an open fire, hoping that Bobby is doing the
same to his band of merry men and pray that our bleak midwinter doesn't
spill over into a post-Xmas hangover.
Remember: turkeys belong on plates, not on teamsheets.
(Editor: That's enough Xmas references.)
Biffa