The Rams

 

Do we have to talk about this?  

No? Yes. Ok, but let's focus on the game as briefly as we legally can in order to continue to pass this off as a football blog. 

I mean, it weren't the worst of games was it? Blues played well for...pretty much the whole match.  

On the Maniche show - in that rented-out steam-room where the heat's been turned off and an increasingly bent, rocking, vulture-like Steve Claridge murmurs over epileptic footage of lower league football - they showed a rampant Blues display.

We had shots hit the bar, off the line, and Derby scored twice with their only two efforts, how annoying. The vulture Claridge pecked over the performance, nodding incoherently, giggling, having an internal dialogue with himself. Think that means we played well.

We need one of those Southampton phantom penalties that I hear are all the rage these days. They seem to be the difference between 3pts and 1pt, we'll have to ask the Physio if they've got any spare going.

Yeh we should have had a penalty when the tree-like Zigic was chopped down in the box and the ref, the shepherd, blew for a dive [delighting his flock]. But the reason we didn't win lies solely with the defence.

Derby were pretty poor. 

If you got a martian and landed him in the East Midlands apart from saying 'why are so many towns named after cakes?', 'what a dive this place is' and 'how do I get out?' he'd probably put Forest as the early season promotion chasers and Derby as the relegation fodder if you demanded a football response from him.

Nevertheless we let them score two goals.

Both were brought about by half the defence playing the offside trap [unbeknownst to the other half of the defence], totally leaving sheep open in the pen, or the pen open for the sheep to escape, and by escape I mean score - I'm not sure that makes sense.

It meant that Curtis Davies and Caldwell stood on the edge of the box with their arms aloft, looking smug and appealing for offside, whilst first N'Daw, and later Ramage, stood confused, scratching their heads on the penalty spot as their opponent fired home.

Ramshackle.

There's rumours Caldwell is out of action for tomorrow's game against Chelsea with bruised ribs. Probably brought about by his penchant for waving his arms around at the linesman, appealing for bonkers offside decisions and not playing to the whistle, probably dislodged a shoulder rib.

Can't be too harsh though, they've been nigh on impenetrable this season. Perhaps an off day. 

Southampton, the fixation this season for my myopic hate, were once again mind-meltingly lucky as they beat Leeds 1-0 despite having 2% possession and their goalkeeper making 22 point blank saves. It's led some people to say the top two dream is over.

10 points the difference?

We'll shit that in four games. We're more than capable of going on another winning run. Yeh we dropped points against the East Midlands types, but in both games we made enough chances to win ten games. It's not like we're clueless.

The Blues promotion bus might have veered off down a country lane and slowed down after getting stuck behind a flock of sheep that are loose for some reason, but it's not stopped to a halt just yet. Once we get past these sheep we're in Coventry, an ideal location for refuelling.