About a minute into the game I mentioned that it was another bobbly Ninian Park pitch - trouble was, in the opening twenty minutes or so, it appeared to be far more bobbly if you were wearing a blue shirt than it did if you were wearing a white one! Derby's control of the football in those opening stages wasn't perfect by any means, but it was far better than ours was and if they had been given a penalty for what looked a more obvious foul by Gyepes than the one that got him a red card against Sheffield United, then who knows how things would have turned out?
However, in amongst all the mediocrity of those opening minutes, the otherwise anonymous Peter Whittingham produced a quality ball into the box and Roger Johnson glanced a fine header into the corner of the net to give us a lead completely against the run of play.... it's a funny old game.
During that opening spell the ball was like a hot potato to City players (given much of his kicking all night, I include Stuart Taylor in that as well) with only one of them showing the technique needed to cope with an awkward but hardly unplayable pitch. When the ball was played to Jay Bothroyd it invariably stuck and he was able to actually play a pass or gain us a free kick (that's how the first goal came about). That's precisely what was needed in those opening minutes, we needed someone to put their foot on the ball and get their head up to see what was going on around him, yet some on here criticise Bothroyd for taking too many touches..... it's a funny old game.
Eventually others like McCormack and McPhail started to follow Bothroyd's lead and City gradually started to improve. Indeed, McPhail improved so much after his poor start that I thought he was a deserved winner of the sponsors man of the match award despite competition from both of our centrebacks and Kevin McNaughton.
In my view, Steve McPhail has had his least impressive season since joining us with things coming to a head in the Sheffield United match when, in admitedly difficult circumstances, he gave as poor a performance as I have seen from him in a City shirt. However, despite all the flak he has taken this season, Steve McPhail has never, even during that awful Sheffield United performance, remotely looked as inept a footballer as Eddie Johnson did in his first six months with us and yet he gets lauded to the skies......it's a funny old game.
To be fair, Eddie Johnson has improved lately - I would say that he is now two or three times as good as he was for us in the autumn months, but, that's not saying much is it. What exactly did Eddie do to win his supporters man of the match award last night? Well, he capitalised on a lovely lay off by Derby sub Todd to score his second goal in eight months with an, admittedly, good finish. Besides that he won a few headers (not as a high a proportion as Bothroyd did though) and then, under no pressure, sliced a corner, which he had needlessly conceded, into his own net!
A different set of rules apply to Eddie Johnson compared to other City players. He does something remotely good and he gets the loudest cheers of any player, he does something unbelievably bad and there is not a word of criticism as it just becomes part of the Eddie folklore - even at 4-0 up, imagine what the reaction would have been if McPhail had created and scored that own goal like Eddie did......it's a funny old game.
Although our 1-0 lead was looking pretty comfortable at the time, there were few signs of us adding to it until we suddenly put together a move around the hour mark, which, given much of what had gone on before, was completely at odds with the quality of the game. Chopra's lay off and McPhail's lovely pass sliced open the Derby defence, but the problem was that it was Gavin Rae who had been played in. Rae had been having a bit of a mare until then and, given the quality of his finishing this season as he had amassed himself a total of zero goals, I for one wasn't expecting what happened next as he took the ball around the keeper and rolled it into the net in a passable impersonation of the aforementioned Jimmy Greaves......it's a funny old game.
After that it was plain sailing for City - Bothroyd scored a typical strikers goal (he doesn't get enough of them) within another couple of minutes and Derby played out the rest of the game like a team who were, mentally, already on the beach.
The performance may not have been great, but to record our biggest win so far now at the business end of the season is an impressive achievement. We were ruthless in front of goal last night and if that can continue for the next few games, we won't have any problems finishing in the top six (I reckon two more wins our last six matches should be enough).
About three weeks ago, I can remember asking how many points we needed to take from our upcoming run of four consecutive home matches to keep us in automatic promotion contention. The general consensus was that we needed nine or possibly eight at a push, but one person said seven would do and it seems to me that he has been proved correct.
We still have eighteen points to play for and we do have a better goal difference than Birmingham. We can still end up with eighty five points, but, with four of those last six matches being away from home, it is asking an awful lot of a team that have won just eight of their previous forty two games on their travels to come up with maximum points - then again, someone did once say that football is a funny old game!