Blues leapfrogged the Rams (that could be painful...) in the league table thanks to Rowan Vine's first goal for the club. Even after Gary McSheffrey was deservedly sent off, Derby still couldn't really muster a chance of note, and Blues hung on for the three points fairly comfortably.
Steve Bruce opted for the same side that had seen off Cardiff City last week, despite the return of the likes of Damien Johnson, Mikael Forssell and Radhi Jaidi. The former duo did return to the bench at the expense of Julian Gray and the desperately, desperately unlucky DJ Campbell. I have been racking my brain for a while now, trying to recall whether I've ever seen Damien Johnson on the bench for Blues - he's always been either playing, injured or, more often than not, suspended. Anyway, as I wrote that I have remembered him being a substitute for Blues, in Cardiff in the play-off final (an unused sub at that) but can't remember many more occasions. Anyway, I digress.
So, to the action, and a good Friday night atmosphere with the Blues fans who did go doing their bit, as did the travelling Derby fans. Both teams started alright-ish, but it was obvious they were both checking one another out, seeing what each other had to offer and considering making the first move - very much like a lot of Friday nights, really.
Derby looked fairly confident on the back of their good win at Norwich in the week, and it was obvious early on that Giles Barnes of "next big thing" fame was going to cause Blues a few problems with his complete lack of position and freedom to roam. He tested Colin Doyle early on, but the ever-impressive Blues 'keeper smothered the ball at the second attempt. Blues looked lively enough themselves too though, with McSheffrey failing to capitalise on some poor Derby defending when rounding Stephen Bywater before delaying too long and allowing Bywater to recover. To be honest, the early stages looked like a couple of good teams both playing fairly well, and that's what you'd have expected really.
Blues began to take a bit of control in the game with Nicklas Bendtner excelling - his one piece of control from a goal-kick had to be seen to be believed - my rubbish command of words aint gud enough 2 do it justice. After killing the ball dead, he turned, took on the Derby defence and his fine left-foot strike was turned away by Bywater. At the other end Steve Howard curled an effort wide as both teams continued to joust for superiority. Interestingly, following Bruce's 'bigging up' of Howard pre-match, the Blues defenders were clearly instructed not to jump for the ball with him, and to drop back to deal with the second ball. It seemed effective enough, and was probably a decent ploy because whenever Martin Taylor did get close enough to him, Howard was too clever for him and Taylor gave away a free-kick.
Just as both sets of teams, managers, benches, fans, etc, etc were settling for a goalless scoreline at half-time to concentrate on the second half, Blues took the lead. Taylor's ball forward was controlled by Vine on the edge of the Derby box with his back to goal. Vine was under pressure from Dean Leacock, but turned, got away from his man and finished expertly, finding the bottom corner with a measured right-foot effort. It was a stoppage time strike, Derby had to chance to hit back, and the loud chorus of 'Keep Right On' as Steve Bennett blew the half-time whistle told you that the Blues fans knew it was a hell of a time to take the lead.
The second half started much the same as the first - Blues probably just shading things, but there wasn't a great deal in it. Derby still had a fair bit of the ball but struggled to make any real impact, whilst Blues looked more menacing and had more purpose to their play when they had it. Christ, I haven't written that many times this season. Or ever, for that matter.
Blues being Blues didn't want to make things easy for themselves - why would they? So, with 20 minutes to go McSheffrey opted to make things interesting by getting himself stupidly sent off. An aspect of McSheffrey's game that has crept in lately is that the crapper he's got, the more he's had a certain tetchiness to his game. He'd been lucky not to be booked in the first half, and then just before he was sent off the game had stepped up a gear in the tackles-flying-in stakes, and McSheffrey had gone for his man but missed. Having not learnt his lesson, or having not got his anger out of his system, he lunged two-footed at Dean Leacock, connected a bit better this time and was rightly sent off.
McSheffrey's been far from his best of late, so perhaps his ban will do all parties a favour - he'll get a break and be able to freshen up a bit, and Blues might look a little more solid (though admittedly they've been solid enough lately). People might think "Oh no! He misses the Albion game!", but to be honest, I think that could really do Blues a favour - we can go there with a more solid looking midfield for what will be a real tough game and something of a battle. With things standing as they are now, a draw at The Hawthorns would certainly be a good result (though we should try and win) and a midfield of Larsson and Johnson on the flanks - whichever ones they want - and Clemence and Muamba in the middle looks good for such a game. Anyway, take one game at a time and all that, we've got Norwich next and there's still 17 minutes (plus stoppage time) left of this Derby game yet...
So, ten man Blues left to hold on against an absolute hell-for-leather, tirade of direct football from a team desperate to get an equaliser and perhaps even win the game? Well, you'd have thought so, wouldn't you? But no, Derby seemed a bit clueless - they actually created less when they threw men forward randomly than they had when playing their usual system against eleven men. But let's analyse things a little more, shall we...?
Steve Bruce is often described as being "tactically naive" by many Blues fans - in fact, I'm sure I've used a similar term myself in the past, once or twice or six hundred times. Billy Davies, however, is lauded by all sorts of people as being some new super-manager - comparisons between he and Alex Ferguson have been made several times this season. The last 20 minutes or so, with Blues down to ten men, I personally feel Bruce won the battle of tactics fairly comfortably.
Whilst Derby just threw men forward with not a great deal of thought, Blues actually adapted well and it wasn't just down to the players. Firstly, Bruce left Vine on in a wide left role, with Bendtner (then Jerome) as a lone striker. It would have been easy to just leave two banks of four defenders and four midfielders and a lone striker on his own, and just looked to hold on that way, but if they had, Blues might have struggled. In leaving Vine on, and moving he and Larsson in a little narrower and actually a little more advanced, it meant that the lone striker always had support, rather than being completely isolated and therefore unable to hold the ball up, meaning that everyone's under pressure again. Vine and Larsson offered outlets and support, and it worked well. The use of Jerome was crucial too - he did superbly well when he came on in the exact role he'd have been told to play - basically chase, harry and don't let anyone settle. Fabrice Muamba actually switched slightly too, and played in front of Clemence, rather than alongside him, and as Clemence dropped deeper to shield the defence, Muamba's interceptions and breaks in front of him also aided Blues in holding on comfortably. So, fair play to Bruce and his coaching staff - you couldn't say that Blues went negative in an attempt to hold on, you could almost argue that they pushed people further forward and it paid off well as the closest Derby came to equalising was a bit of a scramble about 15 yards from Doyle's goal.
Blues won, they won well in a big game, and the league table looks good now - forget Derby and the gap between the top two, look down to the gap between Blues and third place - that's the real issue. Get promotion first and then if the title's on, concentrate on that then.
There have been references by other clubs' fans this season to Blues being "the Chelsea of the Championship", and whilst I don't really understand what they mean, is that a bad thing? It's probably a reference to just buying everyone elses' best players and things like that, but Blues are starting to bear a resemblance to the other Blues in other ways. In the previous two seasons Chelsea haven't been the best team to watch - you'd have rather watched Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and possibly others. However, in both those seasons they won the league. In doing so, they won plenty of games 1-0, and took plenty of points off their rivals. Blues are displaying the same reassuring traits. This game they played well enough, but you still wouldn't say it was glorious football, yet they won again. In the past seven games they've won 1-0 against Stoke, Palace, Leeds, Cardiff and Derby - none of them have been stunning games, but they've got the results and whilst other teams may be playing better football, where are they in the league? If Blues carry on like this for the rest of the season - solid, grafting, narrow victories, then I suspect everyone will be very, very happy - I know I will, and sometimes I'm hard to please.