Andy Munro watches Blues beat Derby County.
With his visiting side having the major share of possession, Wayne Rooney moaned that Blues didn’t deserve to win but unfortunately he showed the same footballing judgement as he does apparently with the ‘fairer’ sex. Simply, Blues had more shots and scored twice at the business end and that’s what matters.
It was great to see and hear the Tilton in full voice to properly welcome the team back and particularly Lee Bowyer and Troy Deeney (shame the programme found the spelling of Deeney too much of a challenge).
In fairness, Derby settled quicker and were the better side for the first quarter but thanks to a solid Blues’ defence they rarely troubled keeper Matija Sarkic. However, Blues grew into the game and thanks to Rooney wanting his team to play out like Barcelona while having technical skills more like Barrow, the Juke and Scott Hogan pounced, with the latter classily finishing from a tight angle.
Again in the second period, Derby flattered to deceive early on before Blues took control with Chong running riot despite receiving treatment which can only be described, at best, as agricultural. Then the moment the Bluenoses had been waiting for as the Chelmsley ‘kid’ made his debut. This brought fresh impetus as did the introduction of Gary Gardner allowing Tahith Chong to push further up to support Deeney. Furthermore, this was all capped off by a sublime finish from Jeremie Bela to give us a comfortable win.
What was most impressive was the how players like Bela, Ryan Woods, Sunjic and Chong all chased back over the ninety minutes as though their lives depended on it. Long live the reign of their manager and mentor Lee Bowyer and it’s definitely now Karanka Whoooo?
