Derby County 4-1 Barnsley

Derby County 4-1 Barnsley
Pride Park
Sunday 6th May 2018
Championship

Back in 1912, some ship named HMS Titanic hit an ice berg and vanished into the Atlantic Ocean. A few weeks later, Barnsley Football Club won the FA Cup for the only time in their history.

Fast-forward 106 years and Barnsley's hopes of survival on a highly unpredictable final day of the season in the Championship sunk as quickly as that ill-fated vessel.

Pride Park - a place that will give Barnsley fans nightmares now for years to come!

The Tykes were tonked 4-1 at play-off bound Derby County; a result which was always going to put their second-tier status in a precarious position, and results elsewhere ultimately consigned them to the drop.

More indignity was to be had when Jose Morais was dismissed as manager shortly after the full-time whistle. The question surely needs to be asked why did the Oakwell hierarchy leave it too late to reach this decision? The Portuguese has clearly struggled in the job and some bravery from the boardroom a couple of weeks ago (before things culminated in a last day decider) might have led to a different outcome with a happier ending.

Free flags for the Derby fans

Nevertheless, the inquest will no doubt continue long into the summer and there are plenty of lessons that have to be learned ahead of next season's venture into League One.

From a Derby perspective, this was very much the cliched 'business as usual, professional performance' to 'get the job done' and guarantee a play-off place where they will now face Fulham who are equally as strong, if not slightly better than them. The Cottagers will be favourites but in the 'lottery of the play-offs' it doesn't mean much at all.

Fancy dress but probably not fancying a season in League One?

On the flip side, Barnsley fans may look back on this game (and probably a few others) and wonder 'What If...'.

A 4-1 defeat against a play-off team away from home looks like a bit of a hammering on paper. However, in the first 45 minutes, the visitors did ask questions of their opponents and there was a sloppy side to Derby's play at times which allowed Barnsley to see quite a bit of the ball in midfield, even though they didn't create gilt-edge chances.

In the second half, the visitors completely capitulated and looked resigned to relegation.

Over 30,000 were inside the ground by kick-off

Cameron Jerome's emphatic opener after around a quarter-of-an-hour put down an early marker for the hosts after they'd spurned a couple of early chances.

Jerome was unlucky to be penalised for handball in an attack where the Rams had a goal disallowed shortly afterwards and there were plenty of niggly, strong and committed challenges going in from both teams as the half grew old, with Barnsley starting to dictate the play in the middle of the park.

Whatever Morais said to his team during the half-time interval didn't work and things quickly began to unravel.

Barnsley knew if they won, irrespective of results elsewhere, they'd guarantee survival and that should always have been the order of the day, no matter what, and at 1-0 behind, they always had every chance of upsetting the odds - so long as they got the next goal.

When Jerome set-up Mattej Vydra for the simplest of tap-ins to double Derby's lead just shy of the hour mark, there was an inevitability around the ground that Gary Rowett's team had sealed their play-off place and the South Yorkshire team would need favours from elsewhere if they were to save their Championship skins.

Derby's players in their pre-game warm up

David Nugent and Tom Lawrence, who put in an impressive display as he actually tracked back and got stuck in, unlike some forward players at other clubs, added further goals in quick succession as the floodgates were now well and truly open.

By the time George Moncur beat Rams 'keeper Scott Carson with a spectacular curling effort with 10 minutes to go, events inside Pride Park were secondary to the drama elsewhere in the division.

At no point from Hope Akpan's equaliser for Burton in their game at Preston (sometime around the hour mark) were Barnsley actually ever in a safe position, but that didn't stop their fans getting stupidly confused and celebrating wildly in the away end when Forest went 2-1 up at Bolton.

The ridiculousness of the situation gave Derby's fans the perfect chance to take the mickey and in true 'rip the p*ss' fashion they retorted with a brilliant chorus of 'You stupid b*stards, you're still going down!' to remind their not-so bright visitors that, erm, they weren't good enough... and they shouldn't have started celebrating!

Barnsley players clap their fans before kick-off - then get relegated!

As it happened, Burton did lose at Preston - a result which would have saved Barnsley their second-tier status (and probably Morais his job), had it not been for Bolton scoring two late goals in two minutes to overturn Forest's lead in Lancashire.

Whether Derby now have what it takes to get to the Premier League and eradicate bad memories of that disastrous 2007/08 campaign remains to be seen. Personally, I'd favour Aston Villa to 'do the business' in the play-offs - probably beating Fulham in the final.

For anyone that's never been to Pride Park previously, the stadium is within easy walking distance of the railway station and it'll take no more than 10-15 at a leisurely pace.

Having visited on numerous occasions there is barely a bad seat in the house and the club usually price their tickets quite reasonably for English football - for this game ticket prices started at £26!

Not a bad view for a Sunday afternoon

To put Derby's ticket prices into a broader context, I'd briefly considered going to Leeds versus QPR today, but for a start the match was effectively a dead rubber and ticket prices STARTED at £34 for restricted view seats!

Pride Park isn't quite 'value for money' for families, etc, even though the club do usually have a few cheap games per season where prices are slashed drastically, but the comfort on offer is generally much better than quite a lot of other teams' grounds at this level.