'I'd snap your hand off for a point': What can Nottingham Forest expect from Derby County?

Nottingham Forest will be looking to end their six-game winless run against fierce rivals Derby County on Monday.

It will be Martin O’Neill’s first East Midlands Derby as manager of the club. The Reds have improved under his management of late, and have been unlucky not to have picked up more points than they have done.

They arguably come into this match as favourites. There’s no doubt that they have improved defensively under O’Neill, and with Derby’s stuttering form, it’s a good opportunity for the Reds to boost their play-off push. They won’t get too many better opportunities to beat their near neighbours.

Frank Lampard’s side have certainly struggled since the turn of the year. The recent speculation linking Lampard with a potential return to Chelsea at the end of the season won’t have helped matters.

Derby have only won three of their last 10 games in the Championship.

Ahead of the game, Seat Pitch caught up with Ollie Wright from Derby County Blog (derbycountyblog) to get his thoughts.

Seat Pitch: How would you assess your season so far?

Ollie Wright: Exciting up until Christmas, gruelling ever since.

SP: Millwall had only won once away in the Championship all season before Wednesday night. Were you surprised by the result?

OW: Very diplomatically put. You must have been laughing your head off about it! It was a joke result enabled by a joke performance, pretty much from one to eleven and including the manager. If Keane and O’Neill were watching that, they will both have been licking their lips, because we were putrid.

SP: You’ve only won two of your last seven Championship games. Did you see that downturn in form coming and what would you put it down to?

OW: It’s actually three wins in the ten league games since we played you last. Nobody really noticed because we didn’t drop down the table and kept progressing in the FA Cup. In fairness, the earlier part of that run was an absolute pig of a fixture list. We played you guys, Bristol City, Sheffield United, Norwich, Middlesbrough and Leeds consecutively.

Coming through those games with one win and three draws wasn’t awful. Reading and Hull were dispatched comfortably enough at Pride Park, but Derby were dreadful in drawing 0-0 at Preston and have since dropped five points against Ipswich and Millwall. That was a massive disappointment to everyone. Lampard has come under scrutiny for his team selection and tactics, which were found wanting in those matches.

During this period, we also beat Southampton in the FA Cup after a replay and penalties, then beat Accrington Stanley, only to crash out feebly at Brighton last weekend. There is no doubt that the additional workload of those games distracted Lampard – who allowed his focus to wander ahead of Brighton – effectively fielding a weaker team at Ipswich for the sake of the cup. It also took its toll on the players. The worst impact of the cup run was losing Mason Mount to a hamstring injury at Accrington. Without Mount in midfield, we lack creative spark.

SP: On the basis of your performance against Millwall, I presume Frank Lampard might consider making changes for this game, so who do we need to look out for?

OW: Lampard messed around with the formation for Millwall. He opted to play a back three for the first time this season to allow Martyn Waghorn and Jack Marriott to be paired up-front, the theory being that one of the centre-backs could step into midfield to bring the ball out from the back, with wing backs hugging the lines to stretch the opposition. It didn’t work – the players just looked completely confused. They miserably dobbed it about between themselves on halfway and lost it as soon as it went any further up the pitch than that. They created nothing. So it’s back to the drawing board.

Assuming Lampard goes back to his standard 4-3-3 (albeit you never know with Lampard, he may choose to do something different), Marriott will spearhead the attack. He is a very clever striker with good energy and the knack of a classic, old-school poacher. Give him half a chance and he will probably score.

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

You know all about Harry Wilson’s ability to strike a ball and he is a major threat if allowed any sight of goal on his left foot. When he formed a midfield partnership with Mount, the two of them were a major threat. It was hard for opponents to effectively mark them both out of the game. Without Mount alongside him, Wilson has found it much harder to impact games. But he has the quality.

Other than that, the team was so bad against Millwall that I’m not entirely sure who Lampard is going to pick. Nobody could really complain about being dropped. Fringe players like Mason Bennett or even Bradley Johnson might come back into the reckoning. At the time of writing, it’s unclear whether Tom Lawrence will be fit to play a part.

SP: What are you expecting from Nottingham Forest?

OW: An organised, structured side with an experienced, streetwise midfield, who will make themselves hard to break down and not be afraid to dig in or break up play when necessary, before hitting us on the counter at the right times – with serious attacking threats in the form of Joe Lolley and Lewis Grabban.

SP: Is there a player within our ranks that you would love to have in your team?

OW: The obvious one to pick out is Lolley. However, in terms of his versatility and filling a niche in the squad on the left-hand side, Ben Osborn could come in handy (in theory!)

(Photo by MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

SP: Finally, what do you think the score will be?

OW: Given Derby’s awful performances in the last few games, Forest will be seen as favourites. As far as I can see, the stats for the two sides look fairly even for the season overall. For this reason, a draw might be the most likely outcome on paper. To be honest, I would snap your hand off for a point at the moment.

After Millwall, I tweeted that if we played twice as well as that at the City Ground, we would get hammered 6-0. That was a bit of an over-statement in the heat of the moment, but not by much.

News

‘I’d snap your hand off for a point’: What can Nottingham Forest expect from Derby County?