You have to go back to the ninth game of the season to find when we played the away game against Derby County at Pride Park and a lot has changed since then. Saints are of course a completely different side and a different proposition to what they were back then, and Derby would argue that they are also. Derby had a diabolical start to this season and looked like early relegation candidates but have sorted themselves out under Jon Eustace and are now very much in the running for nicking a play-off place and a potential return to the Premier League.

The last time they were in the Premier L:eague was 2007/08 and they were shite, even more so than we were last year, when Derby were mentioned a lot around Southampton, for the very poor reason that Derby had the worst season ever in the Premier League, a season that it was thought would never be matched in its complete 11 point shite-ness. Saints of course had a fucking good go and eventually finished on one point more. Derby have never been back since that relegation and have had four unsuccessful playoff campaigns, which they deserved after beating us in the playoffs in 2006/07, which was one of the more traumatizing defeats that I can remember us having. As I wrote in the preamble for the away game https://league1minus10.co.uk/2025/10/07/championship-match-9-derby-county-1-southampton-1/ – “It actually started in the first game with Derby kicking Gareth Bale out of the second game and when the second game arrived, Burley picked Kelvin Davis for his first game in months and he fumbled us 2-0 behind in the first minute before Colombian drug lord Jhonny Viafara scored twice and I sorry I ruined the party, before Leon Best’s impossible own goal, before Rasiak took us to penalties, before ex Derby penalty King, Inigo Idiakez, smashed his penalty at the fucking moon.”

A potential return to the Premier League is of course very much on Saints radar now after a run of 13 games without defeat in the Championship, not to mention a run to the FA Cup semi-final. We are feeling massively good about ourselves, which could not be said back in week nine of the season when Will Still was our manager and we had vibes instead of a plan and it only took the slightest adversity for the whole team to go to shit. The Derby game was memorable for us taking the lead when Adam Armstrong dribbled through three powderpuff challenges before scoring and then us looking totally in command until Ross Stewart, starting his third game in a week, picked up a hamstring injury to put him out for three months. Derby predictably fought back for a point when Ryan Manning decided that arguing with the linesman over a throw-in he had clearly given away, was a better use of his time than getting near Max Johnston when he crossed the ball for Patrick Agyemang to score.

Sadly for him, Agyemang picked up an knee injury last week that will keep him not only out of this game and the rest of Derby’s season, but the World Cup as well with the USA. Also missing for Derby this afternoon will be Ben Brereton Diaz who will of course be ineligible. The good news is that he has been playing relatively well, which should make it easier for us to move him on in the summer. With Derby being just a three points behind us in the League, it’s a game that we must win and a game that you would think will be very close. We thought all that before Wrexham on Tuesday, so with any luck, this turns out in roughly the same manner. Like in that game, if we turn up and bring the energy, we should have enough to win this game against the team who I expect to play a low block and try and hit us on the break and rely on set pieces. The speed of our attack will be important, given that the two Derby Central defenders Matt Clarke and Dion Sanderson are not the quickest, so we have to try and move them around and any opportunity that we do get to break upfield quickly, we have to take.

Tonda Eckert, fresh from picking up another Manager of the Month award for March, to add to his February award, hasn’t managed against Derby yet, but his press conference left no doubt that he knows what to expect and he’s earned the trust of the fanbase and we now expect him to make the right decisions regarding the makeup of the team. It’s going to be a different challenge to the last few home games, but I’m going into games now genuinely looking forward to finding out how he’s going to go about it.

So, team news and a few changes of course. Scienza, Stewart, Jander, Fellows all back withy Edozie, Larin, Charles and Matsuki all dropping to the bench. Derby have replaced the injured/ineligible pairing of Agyemang and Brereton Diaz with Max Johnston and Sam Szmodics, who have both caused us issues in the past.

Derby start relatively well and at least look interested in attacking which is more than I expected. However, Saints pick up the ball deep in their own half through Stewart and he sends Scienza away down the left but when he gets to the edge of the penalty area he makes a mistake of knocking it to Fellows whose touch is loose and a Derby defender gets in to clear it.

Manning is the next one to put in a cross towards Stewart and he gets beaten into it by Clarke, but it drops down on the edge of the box for Jander to win it back and feed it into Azaz on the penalty spot and though he makes space for himself, he scuffs his effort wide.

A theme is beginning to emerge whenever Saints try and play and that’s a Derby player putting in a late challenge which is not just a bit late, it’s ball in another post code late. Morris is usually the guilty party but neither referee or linesman appear to want to do anything about it. To be fair, their eyes were probably on the post code with the ball in it.

A Derby player fancies himself as prime Rio Ferdinand and tries to run the ball out of defence but he reckons without the telescopic legs of Caspar Jander. So, Jander wins the ball back and carries it forward and finds Stewart on the edge of the box, who tees up Azaz again, who at least gets it on target this time, but his side footed effort is weak and straight at O’Donnell.

Peretz has not been tested as yet and he starts another attack with THB playing the ball into Azaz. He tries to bounce-pass it to Jander and just kicks it straight out for a corner, about ten yards wide of where he was aiming. That was shit. In comes the corner from the left and it hits the back of Jander’s head about five yards out and drops for Carlton Morris at the back post to stab into the net, with Jack Stephens taking a watching brief of the striker he was marking, from the wrong side. What a shit goal.

It’s a bit of a shock to be honest and not long before half time, we do win a free kick out on the left of Scienza is pointlessly fouled by right back Ward. In it comes from Breezy and the keeper is absolutely nailed to his goal line but no one is gambling at the back post and it goes out for a goal kick. That kind of sums us up this half, with no one having sufficient desire to get in there and score a goal.

We certainly have a lot to do in the second half to get back into this as we have not handled Derby‘s physicality at all and our attacking players have been strangely not on it, especially when it comes to getting in the box to finish off chances.

We do seem a little bit livelier at the start of the second half and Scienza now is not bothered by the fact that Derby are doubling up on him, and takes on both players and gets to near the line before winning a corner. Nothing comes of it but we are getting players coming in on crosses now as Manning swings one over from the left and Fellows arrives, albeit late and adds heading over the bar to the ways he has managed to miss the target this year.

Derby are showing less and less as an attacking force and have a rare foray up the pitch and the ball gets fed in from the left to Szmodics, who tests out out Peretz from 30 yards but comfortably saved. We try and build from the back and lose the ball about 30 yards out, but then Telescopic Jander wins it back and sets off down the right wing. He carries the ball deep into the Derby half before finding Azaz and onto Scienza, who only has one defender in front of him this time and he uses him as a screen before bending the ball brilliantly into the far side netting giving the goalkeeper no chance at all. Get in. Now get into these.

Having equalised, Tonda takes off both Stewart and Fellows and replaces them with Larin and Matsuki. it now looks like only one team is going to win this now and Scienza has come alive and wins another corner. In it comes and head over by big Cyle.

Manning picks out a nice pass forward from left back and Flynn Downes has run forward into space to pick it up before being pulled to the ground by Fraulo. This is a good position for Ryan Manning and he swings in the free kick left footed and there is a completely free header for THB, which he buries past the flapping O’Donnell.

Jander has been a feature of this game and he’s at it again as he emerges yet again from a cluster of bodies before rampaging up the pitch and he finding Azaz on the left, but in keeping with the rest of his efforts on goal today it’s another daisy cutter straight to the keeper.

Time for some more subs with Azaz and Scienza being replaced with Edozie and Charles. Derby are looking to pick up the pieces off of Carlton Morris but his dreadful touch sees Downes pick his pocket and go sprinting away. It’s a four on two opportunity to finish the game off and we…. totally fuck it when Flynn goes the wrong way to Larin, who should hit it first time but instead takes a touch and runs out of room and we made a massive fucking bollocks of that. No matter though as Derby have run out of steam and the remaining minutes pass with no issue.

Well that was hard work but we got the job done. The first half wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either and we were not helped by the fact that all four of our attacking players were not the races. The rest of the team was fine with the back four all doing their jobs and Downes and Jander and particular, having very good games in that first half and their good form continued throughout. The attacking play in that first half was very lacklustre however. Azaz was getting himself in good positions and then usually wasting any chance that he had to shoot or create something. Fellows was back to being his frustrating non-productive self. occasionally getting in across but never looking like he was going get on the score sheet. Ross Stewart just seemed to spend the whole of the first half on the fringes and not getting on the end of crosses where he should’ve been. His afternoon was summed up by the air shot he played which pinged off his standing leg.

Leo in the first half was very well marshalled by Derby with the right back Ward sending him on the outside and the midfielder Banel, dropping back in to stop Leo cutting onto his right foot. Luckily, Derby couldn’t keep the concentration levels up in the second half and the first goal came as a direct result of Ward, not getting close enough to him and Banel being absent and in the end, Ward ended up shielding the sight line of the goalkeeper as the ball fizzed round him and into the net.

Before that, of course we had conceded a goal on the half hour as a result of some overconfident pissing around at the back, which had ended with Azaz passing the ball straight out of play for a totally needless corner. This is not a calamity in itself, but it is when you don’t deal with the ball swinging in and leave Carlton Morris on his own at the back post.

Once Leo had equalised however, there was only one team that was going to win it and it took a familiar double act of a Ryan Manning free kick at the THB header to win the game. Once we’ve gone ahead, Derby didn’t have anything much to worry Daniel Peretz.

John Eustace had a bit of a moan afterwards about the fact he didn’t think it was a free kick that led to our second goal. Notably absent was any sort of statement about all the times Derby left their foot in in the first half. They didn’t get any bookings for any of these challenges because usually they were so fucking late, the referee wasn’t even looking. One thing that I have learnt watching the Championship is if the referees are bad, the guys running the line are even fucking worse. There was one late challenge in particular on THB by Morris, whether referee was looking up the pitch so would’ve missed the late lunge by the Derby striker but the linesman, was looking straight at it and gave absolutely nothing. It seems like they’re there to put the flag up for offside, occasionally and usually late, and to give throw-ins one way or another. They don’t bother with foul throws anymore because they were a couple of those today out on the Derby left.

I think we were all pleasantly surprised by the Wrexham performance and how good it was bearing in mind it was only a few days after the Arsenal game. A few days forward again and I’m reminded that you cannot play well in every game in the Championship because there are simply so many games. We get another opportunity to put in a performance on Tuesday with the hastily brought forward home game against Blackburn.

Today was one of those days where it wasn’t brilliant, but we got the job done and you have to win games like that at times. There’s a few other teams near us in the table who could’ve done with a scrappy win today with Middlesbrough, Hull, Wrexham and Norwich all losing and Millwall drawing, which all means that we’ve moved up to 5th place and there is now a five point gap to Wrexham in 7th. The last automatic slot still looks beyond us but third place is definitely up for grabs.

Tune in in a few few days for another instalment.

Up the fucking Saints.