The month that defined Derby’s 2025-26

How do you sum up the past nine months in one article? It’s a near impossible job. So instead, let me take you back to the seven games, over five weeks (what’s a few days for the purpose of a headline?) that encompassed the lowest point, some of the highest points, and key themes of the men’s first team’s campaign.

We must start, I’m afraid, at the Kassam Stadium. Derby County’s worst performance of the season. ‘Outplayed. Outbattled. Outclassed,’ I wrote, in my bluntest assessment of a Rams game you’ll find on this site. Needing to go to Moor Farm the following morning, it was certainly an interesting time to publish that!

Stanley Mills may have been the only player to find the back of the net, but Jacob Widell Zetterström had to make a string of saves to ensure that was the case. Meanwhile, the front four looked uninspiring, still yet to click into gear. Derby’s play was ‘as laboured as a jet-lagged sloth’ in my view.

Speaking to Sky Sports after what looked like it could be an early-season six-pointer, John Eustace admitted that his side “didn’t deserve to get anything”, after “losing too many duels and not being aggressive enough.”

The heat and glare that was on the former Rams midfielder was now even more intense than that of the studio lighting in the Moor Farm press conference room where he often emphasised that: “It’s a 46-game season.”

On the surface, it was a blindingly obvious statement, but the subtext was vital in the season’s opening weeks. After much regeneration of the squad, with “13 players out, and 13 players in” success would not be instant. The “Derby County Family” which Eustace referenced so often, needed to be patient and stick together.

Crunch time?

The aftermath of the Oxford defeat was the only point in the season that I heard any semblance of doubt from insiders about Eustace’s future. With just one win in ten, there was recognition that the period up to the next international break was crucial – particularly as The Rams had three more fellow bottom-six sides to face. If he failed to get a win in two attempts over the next week, how far would fans’ patience stretch?

Well, if the first half at home to Liam Manning’s struggling Norwich side was anything to go by, not much further. In an unclear shape (it looked like a 4-2-3-1; Eustace’s comments suggested otherwise) Derby were holding on for dear life against a manager who really was clinging to his job. But the half-time return of Sondre Langås, who had spent the past five months recovering from surgery on the torn meniscus he had played despite during ‘The Great Escape’, transformed Derby’s fortunes.

With the Rolls-Royce defender back on the Pride Park pitch, Eustace now had a pacey, progressive wide centre back to compliment defensive contribution machine Matt Clarke on the other side (he made a remarkable 23 on that cold October evening). And with Dion Sanderson having battled through a difficult start to life in the East Midlands too, The Rams now had a well-balanced back three akin to the one that had kept them up featuring Nat Phillips, which would be the foundation to their winning streak.

David Ozoh got the sole goal, moments after Vladan Kovačević brilliantly denied Morris. A 3-4-3 with Langås looked like the way forward.

Indeed, it was against QPR. Back in the starting XI, Langås got the assist for Carlton Morris’ tenth minute winner by flicking on Max Johnston’s ball into the six-yard box for Derby’s number nine to head home. But as was rapidly becoming a theme of the season, with the return of one player came injury to another. This time, it was Johnston, the 21-year-old Scot suffering a hamstring injury just as he was starting to find form. Due to further setbacks, he would not play again until April.

But much like Bobby Clark being dropped in as a six against the West London side with Lewis Travis injured and Ebou Adams suspended, Johnston’s absence also created an opportunity. Who would have foreseen Joe Ward becoming an integral part of the Derby side? He had suffered an injury-riddled couple of years and had failed to cement a starting berth under Paul Warne in League One.

A set-piece wizard and a hat-trick hero

None of that mattered at Bramall Lane, though, where Ward grasped his chance with both hands as Morris headed in his corner to open the scoring. Sporting the armband in the absence of Travis and Adams, Derby’s number nine netted his second before the Blades faithful had even finished singing about, never mid eating, their greasy chip butties. And he then completed his first career hat-trick from the spot.

Three days later, at home to Hull, Ward set another corner on an immaculate flight path, Morris heading past Ivor Pandur. All hail air traffic control. I mean Matt Gardiner, who Eustace that night called “one of the best in the business.” Over the course of the campaign, the assistant head coach co-ordinated 23 set-piece goals, the fourth highest in the division, with The Rams the second-highest overperformers in relation to xG from dead balls.

After Joel Ndala equalised from a yard out, it was Lars-Jørgen Salvesen who bagged the winner, scoring with his first touch after coming on with seven minutes to play. Tigers stopper Ivor Pandur, who had earlier escaped punishment for handling the ball outside of his box, was unceremoniously dinked by the Norwegian striker, who hit his first Pride Park goal before news of his substitution was known beyond the stadium.

“It's not about any individual; it's not about 11 players. It’s about the squad of 25 over the season,” Eustace explained post-match. Bar Travis, Johnston and Owen Beck, who never played a minute while on loan due to persistent injury woes, the head coach now had everyone at his disposal. The strength in depth Derby had rebuilt with over the summer was showing.

A grudge match

Next it was time to spoil a birthday party. A 150^th, at Blackburn of all places. Unwelcome returns for Eustace, Sanderson and Ben Brereton Díaz.

After losing David Ozoh to an early injury, Derby responded well. Unmarked, Morris opened the scoring from a Callum Elder corner before Patrick Agyemang made it two on the stroke of half time. A birthday gift from Sanderson allowed Yuki Ohashi to slot a penalty down the middle as Derby put eleven men behind the ball. But they survived a chaotic finish to sign off for the final international break of 2025 with a win.

“It’s about trying to find the right balance now for [Morris and Agyemang] to play with each other,” Eustace had told me after September’s defeat to Preston, where Morris played as a ten, with Agyemang up front. But the balance came instead with Agyemang using his pace and power as a wide outlet, driving into the inside-left on the ball, with Morris leading the line.

That trip to Ewood Park was the first time both forwards had scored in the same game – the strongest indication yet that the strike partnership of experienced Championship mentor and raw but exciting mentee had clicked. It was no coincidence that The Rams were now the Football League’s form team.

A hammer blow

But Patrick Agyemang would have to go it alone when Morris was “body-checked” off the ball 10 minutes into the visit of Watford. As if you need a reminder of how big a blow this was, I spent the next five minutes watching the former Luton skipper’s shuttle runs on the touchline and not the match action. He was the story.

In the absence of their top-scorer, Derby’s new CM9, an out-and-out 20-goal striker akin to Chris Martin, The Rams would need goals from unlikely sources. And they came: Dion Sanderson netted perhaps the best goal of his career, before Sondre Langås got his first Derby goal from a Joe Ward free kick.

Set piece, again. Joe Ward, again. Goal, again. The live table showed Derby in the top six.

But Luca Kjerrumgaard pulled one back for The Hornets before Edo Kayembe’s late brace rubbed salt into Derby’s wounds and dropped them down to eighth. As was so often the case, this was a time for John Eustace’s “we don’t get too high or too low” mantra.

The bigger picture

So, there you have it, the five weeks that really got Derby’s season going. After a difficult start, The Rams produced some top-end Championship quality performances. But injuries to key players at crucial moments meant they fell just short of the play-off places.

“We haven’t really cemented a top six place, we’ve always flirted with it,” Eustace said ahead of the final day clash with Sheffield United. His side spent just nine days in the top six.

Further key themes of the campaign were present in the above seven games too. There was clear top-end Championship quality from Eustace’s Rams when they could field a settled side with key players fit. Admittedly, they were without captain Lewis Travis over this period, but in terms of injury woes, this was about as good as things got.

To be clear, I am not pointing that out as a stick to beat Travis with. While his performances have divided Derby fans, I think he has improved since returning from that injury lay-off, becoming an important anchor to The Rams’ play in the 4-2-3-1 they have excelled in in 2026.

Instead, I mention this to emphasise a point about consistency of team selection. Something which Eustace stressed the importance of to me after the 3-1 win at home to Blackburn in February, with his side further strengthened by the arrivals of Derry Murkin and Sam Szmodics, and the resurgence of Ben Brereton Díaz.

He said: “I think we have to realise that we haven't had that settled team all season. You know, there might have been a handful of games where we were able to pick the starting XI continuously. So, just to get that chemistry, the balance, you have to have that settle the XI.

That day, when Derby came from behind to win for the first time under Eustace, half-time tweaks won them the game: Murkin higher, Agyemang narrower, Travis covering. And it was when that balance was disrupted again, with injuries to Agyemang and Murkin, that the top six push looked unlikely, albeit alive until the final day.

A “no excuse culture”

In his final pre-match press conference of the season, he said: “I think I spoke about it last season, about a no excuse culture. But to have that no excuse culture, you’ve also got to have people who understand the reasons why things are happening.

“Because we don’t want to start using excuses which are there because really it is about results and it’s already been proven this year that nobody’s really interested about why. It’s about winning, so we have to find a way to win.

That, truly, summarises the head coach’s position discounting the first ten games of the season. Finding a way to win in the face of many a set-back which could be used as an excuse. Instead, Eustace’s Derby have battled on to get some top results, often in difficult circumstances.

The final day may have been disappointing, but the season was not. Optimism is the prominent emotion at Pride Park. In learning from this season, players having a full pre-season will be hugely important – that is why Eustace is so keen to get his summer transfer business done early. Derby’s quality has become more and more obvious as the season has gone on, if they can bolster their ranks and get off to a smoother start, who knows how next season could end?

To finish, I would like to say thank you. To our guests and contributors, to the local media and to the team at Derby County and John Eustace, who have put up with my questions all season!

But most importantly, to you for reading, watching and listening to our content this season. We still have a couple of podcasts to come and do keep an eye on our socials where we will have content to come as news breaks. I’m not trying to catch every story on here, but I hope that we do provide colour, context and reflection.

There’s plenty more to come as 2026-27 approaches, but after covering 74 games across the men’s and women’s first teams this season, (including 20 from the Pride Park press box!) it’s time for a weekend off.

I'll leave you with links below to my favourite Rams Review pieces of the season.