A clean sheet from the play-offs

It really does beggar belief but the Derby County defence was for so long the building block of recent successes. A sound back four helped Derby County with clean sheet after clean sheet, last season and at the beginning of the current one.

What has gone wrong with the Rams back line? Richard Keogh has just been placed in the Sky Bet team of the Season, yet the Rams have let seven goals past them in the last two games alone. The attack is finding it hard to keep scoring just to gain a point at teams Derby should clearly be sweeping aside.

The march toward the Premiership has turned into a crawl but where do the answers lie? Raul Albertosa was a sensation according to reports, wanted by Premiership and several Championship sides before the Rams snapped him up a couple of months ago. Yet where is the form, quality and assurance he should be adding to the Derby County back line?

Granted we have had cruel luck with injuries this season, starting before a ball was kicked with defensive midfielder George Thorne, but is it all down to injury and bad luck? I don’t believe other teams have improved, it is really down to the bad form of the Derby players over the last four months.

Will Derby even reach the play off’s? It will be hard against a Reading team that has a history of beating the Rams. Yet a point is all we require but will nerves and the defence hold out, I have my doubts.

Statistics show we had our best chance of promotion last season. Historically the team finishing 3^rd in the Championship has a 35% chance of winning the whole play-off series and promotion. Teams finishing in 4^th place have the worst statistical chance as only four teams have won the play off’s by finishing fourth in the 23 years of these games, just 17 %.  5^th place may be Derby’s best chance, this team has won 26% of the play-off’s, and with 6^th taking 22% of the games to win the multi million pound game.

As Steve McClaren has reminded us on several occasions, “it is in the teams hands” and we do deserve a little luck this season, so COME ON YOU RAMS.!!!!!