DERBY COUNTY BLOG 

Published to Patreon on 12 April 2026. Here is a link to the league table on that date. Football is the ultimate spectator sport, and everyone involved in it professionally will repeatedly be told quite forcibly - quite possibly in capital letters - how they are doing it all badly and wrong. Criticism isn't nice, and I'm not sure that anybody honestly relishes it, but in this industry, it genuinely would be better for any player or coach to just never look at social media, or

TEAM RECORDS A full data set is here. Biggest win: 5-0, Bristol City (A), 30 January Heaviest defeat: 3-5, Coventry City (H), 16 August Longest winning or undefeated streak: 5, 21 October to 8 November - Norwich City (H) 1-0; Queens Park Rangers (H) 1-0; Sheffield United (A) 3-1; Hull City (H) 2-1; Blackburn Rovers (A) 2-1. Derby's longest unbeaten streak of the season immediately followed their longest winless streak. Longest winless streak: 5, 20 September to 18 October - P

This post was initially published to Patreon on 25 May 2026 The Derby County first team squad, as of May 2026 Let's start with the position where the least work is required, and then work our way up to the areas where more major surgery is required. Goalkeeper This is straightforward, as things stand - nothing needs to be done here, barring a surprise sale. Jacob Widell Zetterstrom is fit again and is Derby's undisputed number one. Josh Vickers is his understudy and the veter

Originally published to Patreon on 9 June 2026 It seems to come around more quickly every year. My annual task of creating a season preview piece for the guys at FourFourTwo. As they will only use a small, edited section of what I submitted, the full Q&A I completed for the magazine is copied below, for my esteemed Patrons. Obviously a huge amount is going to change in the coning weeks - and we'll cover that blow by blow throughout the summer - but these are the best answers

Originally published to Patreon on 28 May 2026 A few weeks ago, friends from the League of Gentlefolk messaged me via our WhatsApp group to let me know that I had an unusually high-profile new follower on X. It seemed that a notable figure from the world of sport and online gaming had suddenly, out of nowhere, decided to follow me, along with a bunch of accounts affiliated specifically with Derby County. This generated a lot of noise. Indeed, I soon received a text from BBC R

Originally published on Patreon - 17 May 2026 It's a story you all know. Back in the 2010s, Derby County had a lot of money to spend on players, and they wasted it. There's an alternative reality where the money that Mel Morris poured into the club funded the Premier League promotion that he (and we) craved, then Derby kicked on to consolidate as a middleweight top flight competitor. Instead, the scouting and recruitment infrastructure was simply never in place for the club t

This article was drafted in May 2026, and originally submitted for NorRam, the magazine of the Norwegian Derby County supporters' club. It’s over, for a couple of months at least, and while the break will do nobody any harm, there was certainly a tinge of regret as I trudged away from a sunny Pride Park after the final game of the season was lost to Sheffield United. It had been no regular loss. Derby were brilliant in the first half, and the game would probably have ended di

The Derby County Blog February 28 2026 In the last couple of games, nobody has been sitting within five seats of me on my row in the East Stand. Today, though, my glorious isolation was over, as most of the usual suspects were back, including the lovely old gent who sits in the end seat, a couple down from me. I was a bit worried not to have seen him for a while, so it was good to catch up with him on the steps to the East Upper, as we both arrived just in time for kickoff. A

The Derby County Blog January 31 2026 To witness performances like that is a rare privilege, and when a night like this happens, you simply have to drink it in. Derby have now won 12 games this season - four at home, and eight away. BBC Radio Derby have taken to asking John Eustace and his players what could explain this unusual situation at every press conference. Every time, the manager and players see the question off with a forward defensive shot. We don't know, they shru

Derby County Blog 4 January 2026 What we learned today was the importance of squad depth. Wrexham were missing one of the joint top scorers in the league, Kieffer Moore, but didn't have a problem because Sam Smith was available as a ready-made replacement. Derby were missing the other joint top scorer in the league, and boy, do we miss him. Wrexham spent the money it takes to build a ready-made Championship squad in the summer, and doubtless they will do more this month. This