Too good to go down, not good enough to stay up
22/03/04 | by Alex Walker

This morning, as fans arrive at work, the abuse from their sheep-bothering colleagues will have already started and the sound of 28,000 supporters cheering at Pride Park will still be ringing in their ears  - this one is going to hurt for a long time. But that is the nature of football and, while sometimes you can swell with pride every time your team comes up in conversation, other times you will want the ground to open up beneath you so you don’t have to publicly associate yourself with the bunch of wasters you follow every week. So local pride has been lost, but something far more pressing is still up for grabs – survival.

If you think it won’t get any worse than this, think how bad it will be if we go down. The bragging rights Derby have got now will be nothing compared to those if they end up sending us down as well. In fact, Saturday’s defeat gives us more incentive (if such a thing were needed) to stay up so we can give them the deserved revenge thrashing next year. I don’t know how much importance players hang on derby games, but they must know that they owe the fans a lot after putting us through that.

A spirited escape from relegation danger would be the perfect pay-back (for now, at least), but spirit was what was most notably lacking from Saturday’s Forest. It was the main difference between the teams, as Derby chased after every ball - think Peschisolido putting Barry Roche under pressure as he went to a kick a ball that looked easy to clear, coffee cup or no. On the other hand - with the possible exceptions of Gareth Taylor and Michael Dawson trying in vain to spur the troops into action - the Reds were lacklustre and apathetic until it was too late.

Sometimes I wonder if fans of other football clubs are put through as many disappointments and let-downs as ourselves. Of course, every team under-performs now and then (even Manchester United and Arsenal!), but we seem to be continually failed by our players and management to come up with the goods when it matters. I’m remembering that game against lowly Huddersfield Town a few years ago that would have put us third under David Platt, which we managed to lose by three goals. Or all those early FA Cup exists against teams we should be able to beat in our sleep. And the players that the club have cynically sold just as they were becoming heroes. Or just this season's performance as a whole!

The disappointment is not that we were beaten, but that we should have won. Man-for-man, our team is better than Derby’s. It’s better than most of the sides around us, yet still we find ourselves struggling to make the pace against them. Despite the cannibalisation of our first team by the money men, we’ve still got a team that should be finishing the season in glorious mid-table obscurity, not a few places above the relegation zone. In essence, we are in the old clichéd position of having players that are too good to go down, but in terms of the team and the performances, what we are currently seeing is not good enough to keep us up.

Two things are missing: as mentioned before, the fighting spirit of the players is often less than required. Since Joe Kinnear’s appointment there have been a number of spirited fight-backs to salvage points, but all-too-frequently you feel that if they started games as they finished them - with all-out commitment to the cause - then they wouldn’t have to come from behind in the first place. This was ever-apparent on Saturday.

But perhaps even more important than this is the total lack of organisation within the team, especially at the back. In Joe Kinnear’s time as manager, we have let in 14 goals in nine games, all against teams from the bottom half. Compared to Paul Hart’s time where the commonest score-line was one-nil (albeit usually to the opposition), this shows a turn for the worse under the new manager.

Kinnear may have got us playing with a bit more excitement, but having the heart to go our and win games does not require losing your head first. With young players it is inevitable that mistakes will be made, and it is unfortunate that Des is not fit to marshal his defenders. But ever since we switched to a more direct style of play, there seems to be the sense that nobody quite knows what they’re supposed to be doing. Nick Barmby’s signing was inspired, but all-too-often he looks too clever for his team-mates who don’t have a clue what he’s going to do next.

I don’t know what more Joe can do to convince his players that they need to start fighting right from the off or they will land themselves in some serious shit next season, but I do know that he can make more effort to improve organisation and discipline. With silly sendings-off and chaotic back-lines, we are only making things harder than they need to be. If they can achieve that in the remaining few games, they will find that launching a spirited attack on the opposition’s goal is much easier when you are not three-nil down.