Jewell's Quiet Revolution

Billy Davies signed in excess of 20 players during his spell as Rams manager. The team that faced Portsmouth on Saturday, less than three weeks after trading began in January, contained only four of them. It would probably have been two, had we completed other deals on the table. It is safe to say that Jewell did not like what he saw when he took over at Pride Park.

There were a couple of injured players that may have featured but Jewell could make no greater statement of intent than he did when sold last seasons Player of the Year Steve Howard and captain Matt Oakley ("it's no secret that I was close to Billy" Oakley said as he departed).

So what does this tell us? Firstly that Davies completely misjudged the standard of the Premiership. It took several months of "this team will get better" and "I'm confident we will start winning matches" before Billy suddenly changed tact and announced that we needed 6 new players. Secondly, it's not as difficult to sign new players as Davies would have us believe (although the blame should probably be directed towards ex-Chief Exec Trevor Birch and praise towards new Chairman Adam Pearson).

Saturday's match hardly seems worth a mention- another Derby defeat (to another successful club who can't even muster a 20,000 gate, as we astonishingly continue to pack in over 30,000 every week) is probably as boring to read about as it is to write about. On a positive note, that's now three goals scored in our last three away games! Remember we didn't get our first until December 23rd.

So where does this leave Derby now? As far as I can see, we've got the longest pre-season ever. A chance to bed in new players and for Jewell to start building a new team. We're scoring the odd goal nowadays and conceding a few less (with the exception of yesterday)- we still live in hope of something to smile about.