The Rams find themselves hamstrung by a new international ruling regarding the number of substitutes that can be used in a match.
As a result of the policy used by a number of managers including England coach Sven Goren Erikkson whereby entire team line-us are replaced at half time in non competitive matches UEFA has initiated a ruling that no more than six substitutions may be used be a side in any one game.
While the reasoning behind the ruling makes perfect sense in high profile England matches it is counter productive in games such as pre-season tours where club coaches want to give as many of their senior players a run out as possible.
Because of this George Burley has reduced the size of his travelling party to Norway to eighteen.
The Rams travel out to Norway today for a period of intense training punctuated by two public matches.
The original plan was to take a large party and give all of them at least a little game time.
The new rule is only operative in fixtures in front of a paying public and it would be clearly wrong to expect the Norwegian hosts to stage games without any remuneration.
For this reason matches such as last Saturday’s game against Notts County are strictly behind closed-door affairs, thus allowing managers and coaches to ring the changes as much as they like during practice matches.